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| 03 Oct 2003 | |
| All eyes look East |
Two of the three leading contenders for the title of 2003
ITF Junior Boys’ World Champion will be in action this week in Osaka, Japan in
the penultimate Grade A event of the year. Current World Junior No.1, Marcos
Baghdatis, of Cyprus and recently crowned US Open champion, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga,
of France are the favourites to take the title and a vital step closer to
ending their junior careers at the top of the ranking list.
Baghdatis reached
the semifinals here last year and will need to defend those points successfully
to hold off Tsonga’s challenge. The Frenchman is only 100 points behind after
beating Baghdatis in the Flushing Meadows final, and with 250 points available
to the winner, there is a lot to play for.
Home hopes will rest on Kosuke Naruse, who has not played on
the Junior circuit since surprisingly winning the Grade 1 Shuzo Challenge in
front of his home crowd. He will be hoping to find similar form this week.
The girls’ entry list is headed by Finland’s Emma Laine and
Andrea Hlavackova, of the Czech Republic. Both are currently ranked in the
top 10 and will be looking to maintain and hopefully improve their ranking to
earn a better placing on the ITF Junior Exempt programme for 2004.
Hlavackova reached the semifinals here last year and Laine
recently won the Grade 1 Kentucky Junior Tennis Derby. Julia Cohen, of
the United States will be looking for valuable ranking points to gain her a
place in the year-end top 10 and Junior Exempt programme.
There will be daily reports and photos from the tournament
in the News section throughout the week.
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