Draws made for 2022 Australian Open Junior Championships
New Junior Grand Slam champions will be crowned in Melbourne in the coming week and the draws for the Australian Open Junior Championships have allowed players to plot their victory marches.
With no previous Junior Grand Slams singles winners in either the boys’ or girls’ draw, the sensation of winning a tournament of Grand Slam stature is just six victories away for two members of the 2022 junior crop.
The last junior victors here – France’s Harold Mayot and Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra – can certainly testify to the power and emotion of that feeling as they too were first-time Junior Grand Slam winners.
Mayot and Jimenez Kasintseva triumphed at Melbourne Park in 2020, with the Australian Open Junior Championships returning to the calendar this year following their Covid-induced cancellation in 2021.
The top seed in the girl’s draw is Croatia’s Petra Marcinko, who enjoyed a blistering climax to her 2021 campaign, which ensured she finished the year as the junior world No. 1 and was named an ITF World Champion.
Marcinko, whose best Grand Slam performance is reaching the quarter-finals at the US Open Junior Tennis Championships in September, will begin her title tilt with a showdown against Alexis Blokhina of the United States.
The 16-year-old is bidding to become the first Croatian winner of a Junior Grand Slam since Borna Coric and Ana Konjuh topped the boys’ and girls’ podiums respectively at the US Open in 2013.
Leading the boys’ charge is American Bruno Kuzuhara, a quarter-finalist at the Junior Championships, Wimbledon in July and a player who has reached at least the semi-finals at each of his previous three juniors events.
Kuzuhara has focused upon competing at professional events in recent months and the 17-year-old will be hoping to bring that experience to the Junior Grand Slam arena this week.
Elsewhere, seeded No. 2 in the girls’ draw is Russia’s Diana Shnaider, who opens her campaign against qualifier Denise Valente of Italy. Seeded third is another Russian, Ksenia Zaytseva, with qualifier Yu-Yun Li her opponent in round one.
Argentina’s Solana Sierra, a member of the Grand Slam Development Fund/ITF Touring Team, is the fourth seed and opens up against Irina Balus of Slovakia, while No. 5 seed Clervie Ngounoue of the United States is preparing to draw swords with France’s Nahia Berecoechea.
In the boys’ draw, Croatia’s Mili Poljicak, fresh from his victory at J1 Traralgon – the traditional junior warm-up event for the Australian Open – is the No. 2 seed and will do battle with Russian Artur Kukasian in the first round.
Daniel Vallejo of Paraguay, also a member of the Grand Slam Development Fund/ITF Touring Team, is seeded No. 3 and faces a showdown with Japanese qualifier Asahi Harazaki for a place in round two.
Czech Republic’s Jakub Mensik is seeded fourth and begins his quest for glory with a showdown against Austria’s Jan Kobierski. No. 5 seed Ignacio Buse of Peru, meanwhile, is another member of the Grand Slam Development Fund/ITF Touring Team plays Switzerland’s Dylan Dietrich in round one.
Further information on the Australian Open Junior Championships is available here.