Aussie juniors ready for action
Alex De Minaur, Jaimee Fourlis, Blake Ellis, Jeanette Lin and Alexei Popyrin will represent Australia in the Wimbledon junior championships, beginning Saturday.
London, UK, 2 July 2016 | tennis.com.au
A five-strong contingent of Australian juniors will embark on their Wimbledon campaigns at the All England Club on Saturday.
Three boys – Alex De Minaur, Blake Ellis and Alexei Popyrin – feature in the boys’ singles draw, with De Minaur heading the charge as the No.7 seed.
Last year, the then 16-year-old De Minaur, based in Spain, charged through to the US Open junior singles semifinals.
Arriving at Wimbledon fresh off a semifinal finish at the junior grasscourt event in Roehampton, De Minaur opens against Estonia’s Kenneth Raisma.
> view the Wimbledon boys’ singles draw
Ellis and Popyrin both fell in the first round at Roehampton, yet they’ve drawn winnable first-round matches against fellow unseeded players at Wimbledon.
Ellis begins against Hong Kong’s Anthony Jackie Tang while Popyrin faces Taiwan’s Tung-Lin Wu.
In the girls’ draw, Jaimee Fourlis will look to continue her stellar season when she takes on Brit Lauryn John-Baptiste.
The 16-year-old Fourlis – who won her first ITF pro tournament earlier in 2016 and now ranks inside the WTA top 500 – reached the third round in Roehampton and also won three matches to qualify for the main draw of the $50,000 ITF event in Ilkley.
She’s joined in the draw by fellow Aussie Jeanette Lin, who begins against Russia’s Varvara Gracheva.
> view the Wimbledon girls’ singles draw
Lin and Fourlis were also part of the winning Australian team at the recent LTA Grand Slam Nations Challenge, held on grass at Eastbourne.