With the draw for the 2020 Australian Open Junior Championships now made, silverware-hungry prodigies know the route they must take to forever have the kudos of a Junior Grand Slam title etched on their career CV.

While seedings and form can be rendered irrelevant on the big stage of a major tournament, what is for certain is a fresh Junior Grand Slam singles winner will emerge from both the boys’ and girls’ draw. 

By winning here, those newly-crowned champions will have emulated recent Junior Grand Slam winners Alexander Zverev, Denis Shapovalov, Andrey Rublev and Felix Auger-Aliassime in sealing the loftiest of junior honours – not a bad selection of names to be grouped with.

The top seeds in both draws are French. In-form Harold Mayot is viewed as the frontrunner in the boys’ competition and opens his tournament account against German qualifier Benito Sanchez Martinez.

Mayot, who reached the semi-finals at The Junior Championships at Wimbledon in July last year, is bidding to become the first French boy to conquer a Junior Grand Slam since Geoffrey Blancaneaux triumphed at Roland Garros in 2016. It is more than decade, meanwhile, since a French boy topped the podium at the Australian Open, with Alexandre Sidorenko the last to do so in 2006

Flying Le Tricolore the highest in the girls’ draw is Elsa Jacquemot, who rose 119 ranking places during 2019 to finish as the year-end No. 7. She begins what she hopes will be a victory march against Russia’s Erika Andreeva.  

The 16-year-old reached the quarter-finals at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon last year and will look to follow in the footsteps of Kristina Mladenovic – the last French girl to taste Junior Grand Slam glory at Roland Garros in 2009.

Robin Montgomery, a Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas winner with USA in September, is the No. 2 seed in the girls’ draw and will do battle with Belgium’s Sofia Costoulas for a place in round two.

American Martin Damm, a Junior Davis Cup runner-up in Orlando, is Montgomery’s equivalent in the boys’ division and faces South American opposition in the form of Venezuela’s Lorenzo Claverie.

Elsewhere in the boys’ draw, No. 3 seed Shunsuke Mitsui opens against wild card Xiaofei Wang, while Jeffrey von der Schulenburg of Switzerland, who is seeded No. 4, plays Italian Lorenzo Rottoli in the 1st round.

Another French representative, Arthur Cazaux, is the fifth seed and enters the competition on the back of victory at Traralgon last week. He has been drawn against Poland’s Mikolaj Lorens.

In the girls’ draw, Latvia’s Kamilla Bartone has experienced Junior Grand Slam success previously having won the doubles at the US Open alongside Russia’s Oksana Selekhmeteva in September.

As revealed in her ITF blog, Bartone believes the Australian Open is likely to be her last Junior Grand Slam and, as such, is intent on going out on a high. The 17-year-old is seeded No. 3 here and faces Russia’s Diana Shnaider in round one.

No. 4 seed and wild card Alexandra Eala of the Philippines will have to navigate a showdown with Israel’s Shavit Kimchi if she is to make headway in the competition.

Czech Republic’s Linda Fruhvirtova, meanwhile, is the No. 5 seed. Described by her nation’s captain as a “Pit bull from the baseline” after she guided Czech Republic to victory at the ITF World Junior Tennis Finals in Prostejov in August, the 14-year-old arrives in Melbourne with a burgeoning reputation. She begins her quest for a maiden Junior Grand Slam title against Weronika Baszak.