By Ricky Dimon
Stefanos Tsitsipas and Felix Auger-Aliassime continued their trek toward what would be a highly-anticipated semifinal showdown in the junior boys singles draw at the U.S. Open. The top-seeded Tsitsipas won his third-round match on Thursday via a 6-2, 7-5 decision against Marvin Moeller. Auger-Aliassime joined him in the quarters by beating Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-4, 7-6(6).
It was the second straight-setter of the week for the Canadian to go along with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 round-two victory over Alexei Popyrin. That second-rounder was an especially impressive result, as Popyrin pushed Denis Shapovalov–a countryman of Auger-Aliassime–to 13-11 in the third set at the French Open this spring.
“There was a bit of nervousness at the beginning,” Auger-Aliassime said in an interview with Yahoo! Sports after defeating Popyrin. “I wasn’t playing the say I wanted to; I wasn’t serving the way I wanted to. There was a little bit of wind, (so) I had trouble with my timing. He’s a good server, too, so (it was) not easy to get a rhythm.
“You have to say to yourself that maybe today isn’t the day I played the best, but it’s the day I’ll be the toughest mentally. That’s what I did, and I’m happy to have won.”
Thursday was not the best day at the office of the American girls. Although four players from the host nation advanced to the quarterfinals, three were guaranteed to do so because a trio of all-American clashes were on the schedule. Carson Branstine, who upended No. 15 seed Yuki Naito of Japan 6-4, 6-1, was the only American to beat a foreigner. Branstine is joined in last eight by compatriots Kayla Day, Vanessa Ong, and Sofia Kenin.
An amazing 10 of the 16 third-round participants in the girls singles draw were Americans, marking the most ever at the U.S. Open since junior draws expanded to 64 in 1984.
“You have so many up-and-coming young women already on the tour, and then to see this wave of great junior girls coming behind them is really, really encouraging,” USTA Player Development general manager Martin Blackman commented. “I think it’s a testament to the partnership that we’ve built with our great private-sector coaches around the country. It’s a testament to the system of development camps and evaluation that we’ve built with the help of the Sections, our Player Development managers, and our Junior Department.
“And lastly it’s a testament to the work of Ola Malmqvist, our Head of Women’s Tennis, who’s done a phenomenal job of just creating a system, being disciplined, building relationships, and giving whatever support we can to our best girls so they develop. It really bodes well for the future of American tennis on the women’s side.”
Meanwhile, action in the collegiate invitationals got underway on Thursday. Georgia’s Austin Smith beat Georgia Tech’s Christopher Eubanks 7-5, 6-1 and Smith is joined in the semifinals by Virginia’s Thai-Son Kwiatkowski and Ryan Shane in addition to Tom Fawcett of Stanford. Danielle Collins, Julia Elbaba, Ronit Yurovsky, and Breaunna Addison advanced in the women’s tournament.
Topics: 10sballs.com, 2016 U.S. Open, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Felix Auger Aliassime, Flushing Meadows, Junior Tennis, Marvin Moeller, Sports, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tennis News, U.S. Open tennis