Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters winners Van Rijt, Chasteau on a roll

While the likes of Tokito Oda, Diede de Groot and Sam Schroder were in the throes of winning back-to-back singles titles in Australia, Ivar van Rjit and Ksenia Chasteau also ended January with two singles titles apiece after winning the boys’ and girls’ titles at the 2024 Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters in Tarbes.

Seventeen-year-old van Rijt became the latest Dutch player to win the boys’ singles title at the annual premier individual junior wheelchair tennis tournament, joining Austrian Maximilian Taucher in winning his three round-robin group matches in straight sets to ease into the semi-finals.   

While van Rijt beat Alexander Lantermann, Charlie Cooper and Luis Calixto, for Taucher there were wins over Benjamin Silvetti, Benjamin Wenzel and Ruben Harris before Taucher narrowly maintained his unbeaten record against American 16-year-old Cooper 7-5 5-7 6-3 and Van Rijt also made it three wins in three career matches against Australia’s Wenzel.

Cue the 13th meeting between Taucher and Van Rijt to decide the 2024 Junior Masters title – their history having included a 6-1 6-3 win for Taucher in their 2023 semi-final in Tarbes.

However, having ended last season with just one win over Taucher in 11 head-to-heads, the Dutch player has begun 2024 impressively and made it two wins over Taucher in less than three weeks as he battled back from 4-1 down in the second seed to take the Junior Masters title 6-0 7-5 after 67  minutes. He’s subsequently replaced Taucher as No.2 on the Cruyff Foundation Junio Wheelchair Tenns Ranking for boys.

Van Rijt began the new season with a 6-1 6-2 victory over Taucher at the Open des Hauts de France Junior Grade A tournament in Marcq en Baroeul, where Ksenia Chasteau was also victorious in the girls’ singles for the second year in a row.

Chasteau secures Junior Masters title double

Seventeen-year-old Chasteau enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2023, starting the year without a title to her name and ending the season with nine singles trophies, including five junior titles and four senior titles at ITF Futures level. Her victory at the 2023 US Open Junior Grade A ensured her year-end No.1 junior girls’ ranking.

Starting 2024 with two 6-0 6-0 wins in Marcq en Baroeul in early January, Chasteau made it six straight sets wins for the year as she comfortably booked her place in the girls’ singles final at the Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters after beating Brazil’s Vitoria Miranda and Japan’s Rio Okano and Yuma Takamuro in her round-robin matches.

But with the top two players in the field of four going forward to the final, the title decider proved to be a much more difficult challenge as Takamuro, the 2022 US Open Junior finalist, battled back from 2-0 down to take a second set tie-break and again came from 2-0 down to level the deciding set.

However, that’s where the Japanese 17-year-old’s title bid started to falter and while Chasteau had failed to convert a series of match points in the second set, she settled any nerves in front of an expectant home crowd to win the last four games.

Chasteau’s 6-2 6-7(4) 6-2 victory after two hours and eight minutes saw her become the first French player to lift the Junior Masters girls’ singles title and she ended January having subsequently strengthened her place at the top of the Cruyff Foundation Junior girls’ ranking and with a career-best No.34 women’s singles senior ranking.

Chasteau left Tarbes with the girls’ doubles title, too, after she partnered Takamuro to beat Miranda and Okano 6-4 6-3. But Van Rijt’s bid to add the boys’ doubles title was less successful as Lantermann and Wenzel secured the final with a 6-4 6-4 victory over Cooper and Van Rijt.