Draw: 2024 Australian Open Junior Championships
Sixty-four boys and 64 girls now know who they will face in round one of the 2024 Australian Open Junior Championships.
Checking out the draw is not for the faint-hearted as merely scrolling down the list makes for strenuous reading, with six wins in eight days needed to lift the singles title.
Play starts at 11am on Saturday on the outside courts at Melbourne Park with the 15,000 seat Rod Laver Arena slated as the venue for the singles finals.
And should they need further incentive, the players need look no further than at last year’s Australian Open girl’s final.
The winner, Alina Korneeva (then 15-years-old) this week played in the women’s main draw in Melbourne, making round two.
Remarkably, her beaten opponent last year, and best friend, Mirra Andreeva, has fared even better and on Wednesday pulled off the result of the AO 2024 anywhere, beating No. 6 seed Ons Jabeur on Rod Laver Arena with the loss of just two games in the senior draw. She has since moved safely into the last 16.
Losing last year’s junior final helped motivate Andreeva to climb from No. 292 in the rankings to 47 today.
“After I lost the final, I was just super upset. For maybe a week I was just replaying the match in my head, and I was thinking, I should have changed this, I should have changed that,” she said this week.
“After that, after all my complaints to myself, I forgot about this match. I decided to move on. Today when I saw that I play on Rod Laver, I said that this time I have to take my chance and I have to win on the big court for the first time and so I did.”
As with the professionals, form is paramount heading to any tournament and Australia’s Emerson Jones, the newly crowned girls’ singles champion at the 2024 Traralgon Junior International this week, is a must see.
The 15-year-old, seeded six, faces 16-year-old qualifier Daria Egorova in the first round with matches spread across Saturday and Sunday. It will be their first meeting.
Jones, a right hander from the Gold Coast is coached by David Taylor, who took Sam Stosur to the 2011 US Open singles crown.
Tennis success in the Jones household is a family affair with sibling Hayden, seeded 16, drawn to face fellow 17-year-old Daniele Rapagnetta in the of Italy in the boys' draw. This will be the second match on Court 8 on Saturday.
Further up the seedings, the top-ranked girl, Slovakia's Renata Jamrichova, will be the final match on Court 8 on Saturday when she will play Italian Francesca Gandolfi. Jamrichova, a quarter-finalist at the 2023 Australian Open, won their sole meeting, on clay in Milan, last year.
Earlier and also on Court 8, second seed Sara Saito of Japan, a veteran of the past two Australian Opens, comes up against Australia’s Giselle Isabella Guillen. Saito, at 17, is two years the Aussie’s senior and will be the strong favourite.
Court 17 on Saturday tees off with Poland’s Tomasz Berkieta, who reached the semi-finals here last year, playing Thomas Faurel of France. Both boys are 17-years-old with Berkieta the victor in their sole clash to-date, on clay in Poland in August 2022.
Sunday’s play will see Cruz Hewitt, the son of Australian tennis legend and former Wimbledon and US Open senior champion Lleyton, make his Australian Open debut.
Cruz, ranked 201 in the junior world rankings and a wildcard entrant, has a tough baptism with the American sixth seed Alexander Razeghi, two years his senior, his opponent. It will be first meeting.
All players should beware of the Melbourne weather, however, which this week has very much matched its infamous ‘four seasons in one day’ tag. Thursday saw several delays but Saturday promises 27 degrees and some sunshine with Sunday slightly lower at 21, albeit it with some sun too. Enjoy.