Draw made for 2024 Roland Garros Junior Championships
History-making Japanese junior Rei Sakamoto starts his reign as the world’s top-ranked boy at Roland Garros this week in an intriguing edition of the prestigious junior tournament.
The Roland Garros Junior Championships, which has a superb tradition of unveiling the elite performers of tomorrow, features an array of the world’s most richly-talented teenagers.
They will be seeking to etch their name on to honor boards headlined by current stars including Elina Svitolina (2010), Ons Jabeur (2011) and Coco Gauff (2018) on the girls side.
It is the 20th anniversary of French favorite Gael Monfils’ junior triumph, while Holger Rune (2019), Tommy Paul (2015) and Andrey Rublev (2014) are also former boys’ winners.
The honor roll is inspiring and ensures the spotlight will be on the juniors talented enough to excel on the shifting surface at the world’s most celebrated clay court tournament.
The respective world No.1s Sakamoto and Renata Jamrichova will be seeking to add the illustrious junior grand slam crown to their Australian Open titles in January.
But the depth of both the boys' and girls' singles draws is superb and should ensure fans watching courtside at Roland Garros over the next week are treated to stellar tennis.
View this post on Instagram
The 2024 season has served as a breakthrough season for Jamrichova, a 16-year-old who plays Bulgaria’s Yoana Konstantinova for the second straight major in the opening round.
The stylish left-hander followed her Australian Open triumph over Emerson Jones by claiming professional titles in Egypt in March and the Canary Islands in April.
Jamrichova then represented Slovakia with distinction in the Billie Jean King Cup by Gainbridge Qualifiers and clinched a crucial victory in her nation’s win over Slovenia.
Jones, who became the youngest player in history to win multiple J500 events when triumphant in Milan last week, is seeded second and faces qualifier Daria Shadchneva.
The Gold Coast-based 15-year-old is the younger half of a sibling double-act, with her brother Hayden Jones seeded sixth in the boys event behind Sakamoto.
Jones, who reached the third round of the Roland Garros girls' singles last year, is among a diverse group of contenders expected to challenge over the next week.
They include Hannah Klugman, who won the J500 Plantation Open at the Orange Bowl last December and is seeded at No.5 in Paris. The emerging English junior plays Luna Maria Cinalli in her opening match at Roland Garros.
Laura Samson is a player to watch and hails from the Czechia, a country where several junior stars have emerged as grand slam champions over the past two decades.
View this post on Instagram
The 16-year-old, who plays Brazilian wild card Nauhany Vitoria Leme Da Silva in the first round, has already won three ITF World Tennis Tour Women’s events in 2024 and also claimed the Wimbledon junior doubles crown last year alongside Alena Kovackova.
Among the magnificent aspects of the Roland Garros junior event is that fans clamour for a spot to watch players on the outside courts in the early rounds, exposing competitors to a true professional experience.
American Tyra Caterina Grant, Mingge Xu from Great Britain and Japan’s Wakana Sonobe and Ena Koike round out the top eight seeds in the girls singles.
In the boys’ singles Sakamoto, who became the first Japanese player to win the Australian Open junior title, opens his Roland Garros campaign against Sweden’s William Rejchtman Vinciguerra.
But the leading contender for the boys’ event appeals as Austrian Joel Schwaerzler, who arrives in Paris fresh from claiming an ATP Challenger Tour event in Skopje last month.
In a pre-Roland Garros blog that features on the ITF website, the former top-ranked junior wrote that he had delayed his celebrations after the win in North Macedonia to prepare for his assault on the junior grand slam tournament.
“Reflecting on last year's Roland Garros, where I reached the quarter-finals in the boys' draw, brings back fond memories,” he wrote.
“This Roland Garros is particularly significant for me as it is one of my last chances to win a Junior Grand Slam, as I am still not sure if I will play Wimbledon or not.”
Jagger Leach, who is the son of former world No.1 Lindsay Davenport, is unseeded in Paris and faces Italian qualifier Daniele Rapagnetta.
Other leading contenders include Nicolai Budkov Kjaer, a Norwegian who faces Henry Bernet from Switzerland, and Romanian Luca Preda, the No.4 seed who faces Argentina’s Maximo Zeitune.
The Roland Garros Junior Championships are scheduled to begin on Sunday in Paris.