The roll call of past winners includes Stefanos Tsitsipas, Marketa Vondrousova, Alexander Zverev, Belinda Bencic, Katerina Siniakova, Sloane Stephens and Simona Halep. Now it is time for the class of 2022 to star at Milan’s Trofeo Bonfiglio.

Trofeo Bonfiglio is the latest Grade A tournament – the highest classification of event – on the junior calendar and will see the cream of the junior crop – the stars of tomorrow – do battle on the Italian clay courts.

The tournament gets underway on Monday, with the boys’ and girls’ draws including players – Paraguay’s Daniel Vallejo and Sofia Costoulas of Belgium – with designs on reaching the junior world No. 1 spot.

Vallejo and Costoulas are currently ranked No. 2 in the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Rankings and victory in Milan would be a major step towards them hitting the summit –a career-high placing for each.

Should this scenario play out, it would be a second Grade A title for both, with Vallejo triumphing at the Orange Bowl at JA Plantation in December and Costoulas topping the podium at JA Offenbach last month.

Aside from January's Australian Open Junior Championships, JA Milan is the third Grade A event of the year and follows the Banana Bowl at JA Criciuma in February and JA Offenbach in Germany.

By the very nature of Trofeo Bonfiglio being a Grade A tournament, it carries with it considerable prestige and offers a significant number of ranking points for the winners.

Victory at a Grade A is also a sizeable feather in the cap of an aspiring player and someone who knows all about that is Peru’s Gonzalo Bueno, who returns to Milan as a defending champion after winning last year’s boys’ singles.

John Alexander – now a Member of the Australian Parliament – was the last boy to retain the title at JA Milan back in 1970, so Bueno has the opportunity to draft an interesting narrative for himself.

Joining Vallejo and Bueno in the boys’ draw are the likes of Edas Butvilas (LTU), Ignacio Buse (PER), Dino Prizmic (CRO), Coleman Wong (HKG), Bo Artnak (SLO), Lautaro Midon (ARG), Nishesh Basavareddy (USA) and Rodrigo Pacheco (MEX).

In the girls’ draw, Diana Shnaider, Ksenia Zaytseva, Liv Hovde (USA) and Nikola Bartunkova (CZE) – all top 10 players – will also bid for glory. Canada’s Victoria Mboko and Lucie Havlickova of Czech Republic, who won the girls’ singles at JA Criciuma in February, are also in the mix.

2021 champions:

Boys: Gonzalo Bueno

Girls: Alexandra Eala

Other recent champions

2019

Boys: Jonas Forejtek

Girls: Alexa Noel

2018

Boys: Adrian Andreev

Girls: Eleonora Molinaro

2017

Boys: Alexei Popyrin

Girls: Elena Rybakina

2016

Boys: Stefanos Tsitsipas

Girls: Olesya Pervushina

2015

Boys: Orlando Luz

Girls: Marketa Vondrousova