Tournament Preview
Top-Ranked Juniors Kyrgios and Bencic Aim to Conquer Wimbledon Junior Championships
by
Colette Lewis, 28 June 2013
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Last year the Wimbledon Junior Championships belonged to Canada, with Eugenie Bouchard and Filip Peliwo claiming the country's first two junior slam singles titles. Bouchard and Peliwo have now moved on to professional careers, but another 128 competitors are eager to raise their profiles in the tennis world with similar performances at the All England Club.
Nick Kyrgios has looked strong coming into Wimbledon
courtesy, Paul Ballard
The boys field is a strong one, with every player currently in the ITF Top 20 entered, including world No. 1
Nick Kyrgios of Australia, the boys champion at this year's Australian Open, and
Christian Garin of Chile, the reigning Roland Garros boys champion.
Not only does Serbia have the top seed in the men's draw, but two of the top four seeds in the Wimbledon boys field: 18-year-olds Nikola Milojevic and Laslo Djere. Orange Bowl champion Djere has never won a junior match on grass nor has he reached the quarterfinals at any junior slam, while Milojevic is the more accomplished player on the surface, winning a Grade 2 last year and reaching the quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
For all its success in the gentlemen's championships, Germany has surprisingly never had a boys champion at Wimbledon, a streak Alexander Zverev could end. Zverev, a still-growing 16-year-old who was ranked outside the top 100 just six months ago, has made a rapid rise in the rankings this spring, with a runner-up showing at the French boosting his ranking to No. 3. After reaching the final at The ITF Grade 1 warmup tournament in Roehampton, he will be full of confidence in his Wimbledon debut.
Andy Murray is hoping to end a long British drought on the men's side, and so too is Kyle Edmund in the boys championships.
Edmund picked up his first ATP win two weeks ago at Eastbourne and is so highly regarded by the LTA that he received a wild card into the men's main draw at Wimbledon. Although he was overpowered by No. 24 seed Jerzy Janowicz of Poland, Edmund has fared well in lower levels of professional tennis, with his current ATP ranking of 385 assuring him the No. 5 seeding in the junior event.