Junior Update by Har-Tru: Summer Heating Up on Home Soil

Photo : Peter Figura

The last four weeks have been incredibly busy for Canadian junior tennis players. At home and abroad, there has been plenty of competition for the next generation of youngsters and plenty of success has been going along with it.

Here is your monthly junior update presented by Har-Tru.

Junior Nationals

The Summer national championships kicked off last week in Mississauga with U18 Fischer Outdoor Junior Nationals. Top seed Mikael Arseneault and Scarlett Nicholson took home the singles titles.

Click here for the full recap of the U18 event.

Over the coming weeks, the U16s, U12s, and U14s will be playing their outdoor national event, while the Masters will be playing their 2024 championships at the end of the month.

J100 Vancouver

Canada played host to one ITF event over the last month and the locals took full advantage of playing on home soil.

The only non-Canadian to get their hands on a trophy was American Zachary Cohen, who won the boys doubles with Canada’s Connor Church. Church was top seed in both doubles and singles, winning both titles. In singles, he beat fellow Canadian Adam Faragcao in three sets, while he and Cohen defeated the all-Canadian tandem of Jason Huang and Owen Nguyen in the doubles.

Only Canadians were victorious on the girls side. Raphaelle Leroux also won both the singles, where she was the top seed, and doubles titles. In singles, she defeated second seed Charlize Celebrini in three sets in the final, while in doubles she and Emma Andrea Tutoveanu maintained the host nation’s dominance by beating the American pair of Isabelle DeLuccia and Briley Rhoden.

U14 World Junior Tennis

Team Canada was back on the world stage at the beginning of August, with the U14s competing at the ITF World Junior Tennis Finals in Czechia.

Photo : ITF/Srdjan Stevanovic/Starsport.rs

Canada was unable to get out of the group stage, ultimately finishing 15^th at the event.

Click here to read the full World Junior Tennis recap.

Shining in the Caribbean Sun

The best results abroad for the Canadian youngsters came in the Dominican Republic at a pair of J100 events in Santo Domingo.

At the first event from July 8 to 13, Cookie Jarvis-Tredgett brought home the girls doubles title with her American partner Reese Calvo, while Miko Lapalme won the boys doubles with Yannik Alvarez of Puerto Rico.

Three Canadian girls reached the semifinals of the singles draw at that event, although it was the one non-Canadian in the final four who won the title. Addison Yang Comiskey won an all-Canadian semi against Isabella Marton, but lost in the final to American Chukwumelije Clarke, who had beaten Canada’s Anna Tabunshchyk in the semis.

Comiskey got her hands on a trophy in Santo Domingo the following week, winning the doubles title with Hanne Estrada of Mexico. Marton reached the singles final but lost to Carrie-Anne Hoo of the United States.

The all-Canadian pair of Alec Barin and Loic Petrecca reached the boys doubles final at the second Santo Domingo J100, upsetting the No. 1 seeds and No. 3 seeds en route, but lost in the final.

Here is a list of Canadians who reached finals at events outside of Canada over the last month (Titles in bold)

Jerry Han: J30 Kingston boys singles champion, J30 Kingston boys doubles champion
Addison Yang Comiskey: J100 Santo Domingo girls doubles champion, J100 Santo Domingo girls singles runner-up
Jay Lin Gibson: J60 Nairobi boys doubles champion, J60 Nairobi boys singles runner-up
Abigail Gordon: J30 Noord girls doubles champion, J30 Noord girls singles runner-up
Jacey Tian: J30 Hong Kong girls doubles champion, J30 Hong Kong girls singles runner-up
Miko Lapalme: J100 Santo Domingo boys doubles champion
Cookie Jarvis-Tredgett: J100 Santo Domingo girls doubles champion
Marylee Longpre: J30 Managua girls doubles champion
Rafael Brown: J30 Noord boys singles runner-up
Alec Barin: J100 Santo Domingo boys doubles runner-up (w/ Petrecca)
Loic Petrecca: J100 Santo Domingo boys doubles runner-up (w/ Barin)
Joyce Geng: J60 Eindhoven girls doubles runner-up
Steve Vuong: J30 Santo Domingo boys singles runner-up
Isabella Bawa: J30 Villa girls doubles runner-up

Rankings Update

Nadia Lagaev is the highest-ranked Canadian overall in the juniors at No. 76. She played in qualifying for junior Wimbledon in July.

Nicolas Arseneault is the top Canadian boy in the junior rankings at No. 118, but it is worth noting that he has started shifting his attention towards the pros. Arseneault competed in qualifying at the National Bank Open in Montreal earlier in August.

Check out the full ITF junior rankings here.

Written By

Pete Borkowski