The new Tennis Europe Junior Masters champions have been crowned after three days of high quality tennis at the season ending event for the best European Under 14 and Under 16 players in Napoli, Italy.
The line-up for this year’s event once again reflected the ever-increasing diversity of the junior rankings, with players from 18 countries taking part. Slovakia and Romania led the way, with four qualifiers each, whilst Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, Serbia and Belarus will also send multiple participants. The 32 players have combined to account for 81 singles and 58 doubles titles on the Tennis Europe Junior Tour during the season.
Britain’s Joshua Sapwell is the new boy’s 14 & Under champion. Ranked #5 at the start of the event, he swept through the draw without the loss of a set, defeating Oliver Nagy (SVK), second seeded home favourite Filippo Baldi (ITA) and fourth seed Johannes Haerteis (GER) for his third (and biggest) Tennis Europe Junior Tour title of the season, following on from tournament wins in Maribor and Stavanger. Having reached the semi finals of the European Junior Championships in July and also played a crucial role in both European team competitions, Sapwell becomes just the second British Junior Masters champion, hot on the heels of 2008 winner Liam Broady.
The girls 14 & Under event was won by #1-ranked Russian Ulyana Ayzatulina, who overcame a spirited fight back from Ilka Csoregi of Romania in the final, outlasting the third seed 6-2 2-6 6-2 to record what surprisingly was her first tournament win of the season on the 14 & Under circuit. With the win, Ayzatulina seals the end of year European #1 ranking and ensures that the girls 14 & Under title remains in Russian hands for a fourth consecutive year.
For the second time in four years, there was an all-Spanish final in the boys 16 & Under event, as top seed and Race #1 Pol Toledo Bague took on Eduard Esteve Lobato in the championship decider. Toledo Bague has been arguably the Tour’s most consistent player this season, racking up five singles titles and establishing a 34-4 win/loss record going into the Masters, whilst unseeded Lobato was riding a an 8-match win streak for the second time this season, having won the event in Mallorca the previous week. Lobato, the younger and lower ranked of the pair put in a dominant display to blast past his more experienced compatriot 6-2 6-2 and follow in the footsteps of fellow-Spaniards Rafael Nadal, Tommy Robredo and Marcel Granollers in winning the Junior Masters.
The girls’ final was a battle between two of the most prolific winners of the season, third seed Cristina Ene (ROU) and fourth seed Tamara Pichkhadze (RUS). The Russian was notable in qualifying for the Masters in two age groups, having picked up a total of six titles between the 14 and 16 & Under circuits during the year. She elected to play the 16 & Under event, and breezed to the final where she made the better start, breaking early on to establish a 6-3 lead. Ene, no stranger to Italian clay courts, having won back-to-back events in Foggia and Foligno in the spring was spurred into action, reeling off twelve consecutive games to complete a 3-6 6-0 6-0 win and become the fifth Romanian girl to win the 16 & under title.
The opening day also saw the tournament to play host to the 2010 ITF/Tennis Europe Educational Forum, where the assembled players were given the chance to get to know more about the work of the ITF and Tennis Europe. Fabrizio Caldarone of Tennis Consulting then provided an introduction to the importance of player relations with the media, management agencies, sponsors and the tennis industry.
First played in 1996, the event is devised to reward the best-performing players of the year on the Tour. The Masters officially brings the season to an end, and features the eight best-ranked European players at both 14 and 16 & Under age categories.