Some of Australia’s rising tennis stars have caused boilovers against top seeds at the AGL Loy Yang ITF Traralgon Junior International over the past week.
Thirteen year-old Victorian Destanee Aiava reached her first junior ITF semi-final on Tuesday with a 6-2, 6-4 win over her 17 year-old fourth seed opponent Nina Stojanovic of Serbia.
In the boys’ singles, Omar Jasika advanced with a 6-1, 6-1 win over fellow Aussie Bradley Mousley, who had earlier eliminated American second seed Stefan Kozlov.
Among the tournament’s other upsets were girls’ third seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia being defeated by 14 year-old Seone Mendez from Sydney and Marc Polmans knocking out the boys’ third seed, Johan Sebastien Tatlot of France.
Both of the tournament’s first seeds, Alexander Zverev of Germany for the boys and Varvara Flink of Russia for the girls, made it through to the semi-finals.
About 176 players from across the world participated in this year’s tournament, which concludes with today’s finals.
Tournament director Francis Soyer said it was the ideal preparation for the Australian Open juniors, which start on Saturday in Melbourne.
“It’s good that we can have two big tournaments back-to-back, it gives overseas players from Europe travelling a long way real ‘bang for their buck’ to come down here,” Soyer said.
“I would say that if you do very well or you win here, a high percentage of the time you’re repeating that same performance (at the Australian Open).”
He said Traralgon was also attractive because it was the only lead-up event to use the same Plexicushion surface as the Australian Open and it had influence on junior tennis ranking points.
“In its own right it’s actually quite an important event as a Grade 1 ITF junior event, which is the second highest level of tournament you can have,” Soyer said.
Sixteen year-old Olivia Tjandramulia from Rockhampton entered the girls’ singles in Traralgon and will contest the women’s doubles in Melbourne.
“I like all the international players coming together in one tournament and seeing where you’re at,” Tjandramulia said.
For more information and updates visit www.itftennis.com and follow the links to the Traralgon event.
Michael DiFabrizio* is a University of Wollongong journalism student
