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| 10 Dec 2000 | |
| 2000 ERICSSON ORANGE BOWL PREVIEW |
More than 500 of the world’s top juniors have
descended on Miami to play in the oldest junior tournament in the
world—the 54th Ericsson Orange Bowl that gets underway
Sunday
and runs throughout the week.
Players come from 70 countries around the globe to find
out
who is the next best thing in tennis—a glimpse of the pipeline to
stardom
in the professional ranks. “Probably 60 to 70 percent of the kids who
are
playing these events will someday be pros,” said Butch Bucholtz,
tournament chairman of the Ericsson Open and Ericsson Orange Bowl, and
himself
a former OB champion.
A list of the champions is a testament to that Bucholz
quote, but not one player who will play in the 2000 Ericsson Orange Bowl
was
alive when a skinny 16-year old named John McEnroe won his title in 1976, a
few
were in diapers when Gabriela Sabatini won in 1984, and most were
preschoolers
when a future No. 1 Jim Courier won in 1987 at age 17.
More familiar names to the youngsters who will be in
Miami
this week are Nicholas Lapentti, who won in 1994 after defeating 2000 ATP
Tour
No.1 Gustavo Kuerten in the final; Anna Kournikova, who turned pro
following
her OB title in 1995; or Andy Roddick, last year’s 18s champion, who
finished up his junior tennis career last week at the Sunshine Open and has
already reached a ranking of 157 on the ATP Tour.
Who will be the next winner in this pipeline to the
pros?
The 2000 entrants include five of the top 10 and 12 of the top 20 ITF
junior-ranked boys along with seven of the top 10 and 15 of the top 20
ITF-ranked junior girls.
Could the next boys 18 champion come from a foursome of
European junior boys—No. 2 ITF-ranked Todor Enev of Bulgaria, a
semifinalist here last year; No. 3 Joachim Johansson of Sweden, winner of
the
World Super Junior Tennis Championships in October; tall German Maximilian
Abel, the ’99 Orange Bowl finalist who is currently ranked 20 on the
ITF
list; or Giovanni Lapentti, the ’99 boys 16 Orange Bowl winner who
could
make history by joining his brother as 18s champion (the aforementioned
Lapentti won the OB 18s in ’94 and was No. 8 on the ATP Tour last
year).
On the girls’ side, Aniko Kapros of Hungary at No.
2
is the highest ranked contender in the draw. She won four tournaments in a
row
between the Eddie Herr in November of ’99 and the Canadian Open last
August, including the coveted Australian Jr. Open. Renata Voracova of the
Czech
Republic, ranked No. 5, is another candidate to challenge for the 18s
title— and keep an eye on 14-year old Jamea Jackson, an American who
upended No. 3 seed Ioana Gaspar of Romania at the U.S. Open Jr.
Championships
this year.
Stay tuned to the website as we watch for the next best
things in tennis at the Ericsson Orange Bowl this week.
ERICSSON ORANGE BOWL NOTEBOOK
The Orange Bowl Tennis Tournament is currently in its
54th
year. It is the brainchild of junior tennis philanthropist Eddie Herr, who
passed away in the summer at age 93. Orange Bowl champions will now receive
the
“Eddie Herr Trophy,” a beautiful Waterford crystal creation
that
will be unveiled during the finals award ceremony on Sunday (Dec
17)…no
one has won more orange-filled trophies than Mary Joe Fernandez, a Miami
native, who won four consecutive Orange Bowl titles in four different
divisions
between 1982 and 1985. She is serving as the 2000 Ericsson Orange Bowl
Tournament Ambassador…this tournament is one of more than 20 events
sponsored by Miami’s Orange Bowl Committee as part of its annual
Orange
Bowl Festival. The Festival has been held in South Florida for more than 65
years; it was originally conceived as a football game between two northern
United States college football teams in the 1930s to bring tourism to Miami
during the winter months. The Festival later expanded to include the Orange
Bowl Parade on New Years Eve, and a host of peripheral events were added
along
the way, including the Orange Bowl tennis tourn
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