Junior doubles semis survive US Open washout
Rain ruled the day at the US Open on Friday when it came to the junior competition.
By the late afternoon it was finally decided to abandon all of the boys’ and girls’ singles quarter-final matches with the hope of better weather for Saturday.
However, not all was lost from the junior schedule on a drenched Friday as the boys’ and girls’ doubles semi-finals were moved to the on-site indoor courts.
Fifth seeds Kamilla Bartone of Latvia and Oksana Selekhmeteva of Russia, who both had their singles quarter-finals postponed, edged past third seeds Natsumi Kawaguchi of Japan and Adrienn Nagy of Hungary 7-5 2-6 [10-7].
This will be the second consecutive Grand Slam girls’ final for Bartone and Slekhmeteva, who are hoping to take the title here after missing out at Wimbledon.
The duo, who will have to play the singles quarter-finals and possibly the singles semi-finals as well as the doubles final on Saturday, started playing together earlier this year.
From the get-go they found that their games meshed well and their friendship blossomed.
“She’s lefty, has a really good serve and plays amazing volleys and she’s also a good friend of mine so we really have a good connection on the court,” Bartone said. “We never fight.”
To that final comment, Selekhmeteva laughingly added, “Almost never.”
Bartone then explained her benefit to the partnership, saying, “I place the ball good from the baseline so Oksana can really finish the point.”
Their final opponents won’t be unfamiliar, as they defeated the unseeded French duo of Aubane Droguet and Selena Janicijevic 6-3 6-2 in the first-round at this year’s Roland Garros en-route to the quarter-finals.
“I think they had a lot of pressure there because they were playing at home,” Droguet said of the French duo. “This is a final and we have to be consistent on the court and play our best.”
Droguet and Janicijevic took advantage of their doubles match being relocated to the indoor facility where they captured a 7-5 4-6 [12-10] victory over Melodie Collard of Canada and Wong Hong Yi Cody of Hong Kong.
“We are so, so happy to be in the finals,” Droguet said. “Personally, I like it that we went indoors because it was faster and I play better. To me, it’s perfect to play indoors.”
Janicijevic seconded that opinion on playing indoors and believes their long partnership together makes for a solid team.
“We’ve been playing together six years now,” Janicijevic said. “We know each other perfectly.”
The French team journeyed to the Wimbledon semi-finals two months ago and are happy to be playing for the title against Bartone and Selekhmeteva. But they aren’t predicting the outcome of the match.
“We don’t really think about winning,” Droguet said. “We will see (what happens).”
In boys’ action, the unseeded American team of Eliot Spizzirri and Tyler Zink upset fifth seeds Liam Draxl of Canada and Govind Nanda of USA 6-7(4) 6-3 [10-7].
“It’s so exciting and this is our last Slam together so to be in the final means so much to us ,” Spizzirri said. “We’re just super excited we got through that match and where just pumped for tomorrow.”
Zink, who recently started college at University of Georgia, was also delighted with reaching the final.
“We played all year together and things didn’t quite click earlier,” Zink said. “This being our home Slam we’re really, really excited we got the job done and we’re looking forward to tomorrow.”
Spizzirri and Zink will vie for the title against the unseeded duo of Andrew Paulson of Czech Republic and Alexander Zgirovsky of Belarus, who scored a 6-4 6-2 semi-final win over Nicholas David Ionel of Romania and Wojceich Marek of Poland.