 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 29 Jan 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 29 Jan 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 29 Jan 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 29 Jan 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 29 Jan 2005 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jan 2005 |
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| 29 Jan 2005 - Melbourne Park, Melbourne, AUS - Eleanor Preston | |
| Young Guns For Kim in Boys’ Final |
Fifteen-year-old Donald Young has Korean teenager Sun-Yong Kim in his sights as the pair prepares to battle it out for the boys’ Australian Open trophy.
Top seeded Belarusian Viktoria Azarenka and twelfth-seeded Hungarian Agnes Szavay will meet in the girls’ final on Sunday.
Young, from Chicago, USA, has long been touted as one of the rising stars of junior tennis but has taken until now to translate that into junior grand slam success. He earned his place in the final with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Sergei Bubka of the Ukraine and afterwards said he was delighted to be in his first junior grand slam final.
“This is really, really big for me and I’m very excited,” said Young, seeded second for the tournament. “I’ve never been even close to getting this far in a grand slam before and it’s great.
“In the first set he was making a lot of mistakes then in the second set he started finding his rhythm, which made it a lot tougher for me. I just tried to stay with him and that’s how it turned out.”
Young is coached by his parents Donald and Illona, who were such keen tennis players that even when their son was in nappies they would bring him to the court with them.
”They couldn’t afford a babysitter,” said Young, with a smile. “I guess I hit my first ball when I was two and had my first match when I was six, though the guy I was playing cheated me because I was too little to know how to keep score!”
Amidst the formalities of a junior grand slam final, Young won’t have to worry about that against Kim, who had to fight his way back from a set down to beat Robin Haase of the Netherlands 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 in their semi-final.
Kim fired the opening salvo against Young when he and his partner Chu-Huan Yi of Tapei beat the American and his Dutch team-mate Thiemo de Bakker 6-3, 6-4 to take the boys’ doubles title.
Azarenka will be hoping to add the girls’ singles trophy to the doubles crown she won on Saturday with her partner Marina Erakovic from New Zealand. Azarenka and Erakovic beat Szavay and Czech Nikola Frankova 6-0, 6-2 to earn their first junior doubles crown.
“I’m very happy for both of us that we won the doubles,” said Azarenka. “We’ve played well all the way through the tournament and I have to thank Marina for that.”
Azarenka was too strong for Aleksandra Wozniak in the singles semi-final, beating the Canadian 6-0, 6-4.
“It’s a big relief to make the final because I’ve lost two grand slam semi-finals after holding a match-point. I tried not to get nervous when my match-point came this time and I think I learned from making mistakes before.”
Szavay set up her meeting with Azarenka in Sunday’s singles final by brushing aside second seed Timea Bacsinskzky 6-2, 6-2.
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