junior champion, Christian Garin of Chile. This tournament is also unique in that it doesn't just offer the 18&Under division, but also a 16&Under, 14&Under and a 12&Under division. The 18's will be the only division to be played on clay, as the rest of the divisions will play on hard court. In the 18's division, here are the seeds for the Boys singles:
1. Alexander Zverev, Germany
2. Johan Taltot, France
3. Stefan Kozlov, United States
4. Quentin Halys, France
5. Michael Mmoh, United States
6. Roman Safiullin, Russia
7. Filippo Baldi, Italy
8. Marcelo Zormann, Brazil
9. Kamil Majchrzak, Poland
10. Lucas Miedler, Austria
11. Andrey Rublev, Russia
12. Naoki Nakagawa, Japan
13. Francis Tiafoe, United States
14. Benjamin Bonzi, France
15. Seong Hong, Korea
16. Nino Serdarusic, Croatia
A lot of these seeds have been testing their luck in the professional ranks since the US Open junior tournament, as Johan Taltot (Greece F18 Futures), Andrey Rublev (USA F31 Futures), Naoki Nakagawa (Mexico F13 Futures) and Marcelo Zormann (Brazil F12 Futures) all won a futures title. Zverev, Halys and Baldi all reached at least one futures semifinal as well. Coming into the tournament, 3 of the seeds are coming off tournament victories. As mentioned earlier, Rublev is coming off his F31 Futures win, that took place on the same clay courts at Bolletieri that are being
played on this week. Stefan Kozlov is coming off winning a qualifying wildcard spot into next year's ATP Delray Beach 250 Championships, as he won the wildcard event. He was down 5-2 in the 3rd set to fellow American (who is in this tournament) Spencer Papa, before winning the third set. Lastly, Filippo Baldi is coming off winning the Yucatan Cup in Mexico. There are 19 Americans in the main draw, after 4 qualified. One of them is Michael Mmoh, who won the Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup in Japan in October. Francis Tiafoe took home a championship of his own, as he won the ITF Pan American Championships in October. Sameer Kumar is coming off winning 2 straight ITF Grade 4 tournaments in Columbia, South Carolina and Atlanta. As IMG Bolletieri is a training academy, some competitors will have home court advantage, as they either currently train there or have in the past. The list of competitors includes Tommy Mylnikov (CAN), Jordi Arconada (ARG), Deighton Baughman (USA), Alejandro Tabilo (CAN), Naoki Nakagawa (JPN), Michael Mmoh (USA), Stephen Madonia (USA), Oscar Janglin (SWE), Alexander Sendegeya (GBR), Toshiki Matsuya (JPN) and Anudeep Kodali (USA) That's over 1/6 of the field (and I may have left some off mistakenly). Although Deighton Baughman doesn't play too many junior events, he is a danger on the clay as he reached the quarterfinals at the Orange Bowl last year. USA's Spencer Papa is the highest finisher in last year's event, losing in the quarterfinals to Egypt's Mazen Osama. USA's Henrik Wiersholm, Zverev, and Baldi all reached the round of 16.
The top seeds for the other divisions are:
Boys 16 Singles: Yungseong Chung, Korea
Boys 14 Singles: Miomir Kecmanovic, Serbia and Montenegro (Weird that this country was listed, since it split up in 2006).
Boys 12 Singles: Alexander Zgirovksy, Belarus
Girls 18 Singles: Vavara Flink, Russia
Girls 16 Singles: Helen Attick, United States
Girls 14 Singles: Kayla Day, United States
Girls 12 Singles: Anastasia Potapova, Russia
Unfortunately the live streaming is only available on the hard courts, so I won't see any of this tournament but I will be following it as closely as possible.
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