Herkko Pollanen (FIN) and Kevin Kaczynski (GER)
Slovak Republic's Petra Uberalova and Germany's Kevin Kaczynski are the champions of the 2012 ITF Junior Open at Linz. Top seed Uberalova recorded a 63 63 win over Belgium’s Elise Mertens to cap a fantastic week, while the 18-year-old Kaczynski demonstrated his extraordinary fighting ability to claim the boys’ singles title.
Kaczynski found himself a set down in the final against top seed Herkko Pollanen (FIN), who had turned 18 the day before, but managed to break his opponents serve at 5-5 in the second and then take the set to ensure a decider. By then the 18-year-old German had found his rhythm and went on to break Pollanen three times in the third set and claimed the title with a magnificent 61 third set win. It was the third consecutive match in which Kaczynski had to come from behind for victory, after being one set down in both the quarterfinals and the semifinals.
Uberalova had lost a maximum of four games per match on her way to the finals. Second seed Mertens offered stronger opposition but still failed to stop the 17-year-old Bratislava native from winning her second title of the season.
Mertens went one better in the girls’ doubles after she combined with USA’s Christina Makarova to win the title. The top seeds advanced to the final after defeating No. 6 seeds Ioana Ducu and Ioana Loredana Rosca from Romania in the semifinals in a match tiebreak. Their final match was much more straightforward however after their opposition - Czech girls Barbora Krejcikova and Slovakian Petra Uberalova - gave a walkover.
In the boys’ doubles event Chi-Shan Jao (TPE) and Lukas Mugevicius (LTU) overcame local favourites Lucas Miedler and Dominic Weidinger in the semifinals before claiming the title with a 75 46 10-4 victory over Israelis Or Ram-Harel and Igor Smilansky.
Final reults and draws can be found by clicking on the tournament link below.