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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

USA Teams for Upcoming ITF World Junior Tennis and Junior Davis and Fed Cups Qualifying; Garage Sale Trophy Revives a Legacy

USTA coaches Jamea Jackson and Kathy Rinaldi will coach the US girls teams

These are the players who will be representing the United States next month in Montreal at the North/Central America and Caribbean qualifying for the ITF's World Junior Tennis 14-and-under competition and the ITF's Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup for juniors 16-and-under.

World Junior Tennis (the two teams qualifying play in Prostejov, Czech Republic, August 4-9, 2014)

Boys:
Andrew Fenty
Keenan Mayo
Steven Sun
USTA Coach: Jay Devashetty

Girls:
Elysia Bolton
Claire Liu
Rachel Lim
USTA Coach: Jamea Jackson

Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup (only one team will advance to the finals in San Luis Potosi Mexico Sept. 23-28, with Mexico automatically qualifying)

Boys:
William Blumberg
John McNally
Nathan Ponwith
USTA Coach: Erik Kortland

Girls:
Usue Arconada
Sofia Kenin
Raveena Kingsley
USTA Coach: Kathy Rinaldi

Both qualifying tournaments are in Montreal, May 8-10.  For a complete list of all qualifying tournaments around the world, see this PDF from the ITF. 

This Doug Robson article from yesterday's USA Today is only distantly related to junior and college tennis, but it is a great story, with my friend and Easter Bowl media liaison Steve Pratt playing a prominent role.  Joe Hunt, who was killed in World War II, won the National junior 15s in 1934 and the National 18s in 1937, before the competition moved to Kalamazoo in 1943. He also won the Intercollegiate tennis championship--the NCAA records say at Navy in 1941, not 1938 as the article states--and the US singles title in 1943 at Forest Hills.  An Ojai trophy purchased at a garage sale in Beverly Hills started Pratt in pursuit of its history and he ended up eventually connecting with Hunt's great nephew, who was trying to revive his great uncle's legacy on his own. 

On Thursday, at Ojai, where Pratt also works as media liaison, the trophy will be presented to the nephew and his family in a ceremony honoring Hunt. I hope the International Tennis Hall of Fame extends them an invitation to attend this year's ceremony, since none of the family knew about Hunt's induction back in 1966.

2 comments:

Brent said...

Another potentially dumb question - what happened to Connor Farren at USC? I noticed he hasn't been in the lineup lately and appears to be in the Open draw for Ojai.

Colette Lewis said...

@Brent:
Farren is just coming back from an injury. He and Nick Crystal are both playing the men's open in Ojai.