Fernandez and Navarro to clash in girls' final while Rune and Kodat face off for boys' crown.
©Pauline Ballet / FFTIt was a busy day of action for the juniors at Roland-Garros 2019.
The girls’ No.1 seed, 16-year-old Leylah Annie Fernandez continued her powerful progress through the draw to reach the final without dropping a set, to become the first Canadian to reach either junior final here since Felix Auger-Aliassime in 2016. Fernandez saw off the No.3 seed Maria Camila Osorio 6-2, 6-4.
In the final Fernandez will meet the No.8 seed Emma Navarro of the USA, who had to come back from a set down before defeating China’s Qinwen Zheng 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.
The boys’ final will see Denmark’s Holger Vitus Nodskov Rune take on the unseeded Toby Kodat of the USA. Rune, seeded No.7, saw off the 15-year-old No.10 seed Martin Damm 6-4, 6-2.
©Philippe Montigny / FFTKodat met the similarly unseeded Japanese, Shintaro Mochizuki, also coming through in straight sets.
The doubles had a crowded schedule of quarter- and semi-finals thanks to inclement weather.
In the boys’ quarter-finals, an all-unseeded encounter saw Andrew Paulson and Eric Vanshelboim defeat the French combination of Arthur Cazaux and Harold Mayot 6-7(5), 6-4, [10-5]. Matheus Pucinelli de Almeida and Thiago Agustin Tirante defeated the No.4 seeds Zane Khan and Bu Yunchaokete 6-3, 6-2, while Flavio Cobolli and Dominic Stricker beat Martin Damm and Toby Kodat 6-4, 6-4. The No.8 seeds Sergey Fomin and Gauthier Onclin saw off Pablo Lllamas Ruiz and Juan Bautista Torres 7-6(0), 6-2.
The final will be an all-unseeded contest. In the semis, Pucinelli de Almeida and Tirante beat Paulson and Vanshelboim 6-1, 6-0, while Cobolli and Stricker defeated Fomin and Onclin 6-3, 6-1.
In the girls’ quarter-finals, the No.1 seeds Natsumi Kawaguchi and Diane Parry dismissed Hurricane Tyra Black and Lea Ma, seeded fifth, 6-4, 6-2. Alina Charaeva and Anastasia Tikhonova, the No.4 seeds, prevailed over Kamilla Bartone and Oksana Selekhmeteva 4-6, 6-4, [10-7].
Meanwhile, Navarro had her second win of the day over Qinwen Zheng, pairing with Chloe Beck to dispatch Zheng and Taisya Pachkaleva 6-4, 6-4. That left the No.7 seeds Adrienn Nagy and Sang Hee Park to beat Sada Nahimana and Hong Yi Cody Wong 6-4, 6-4 in the last quarter-final.
The semi-finals were halted by the weather, with Beck and Navarro were leading Nagy and Park 6-3, 1-0. Kawaguchi and Parry’s meeting with Charaeva and Tikhonova had yet to start.
ROLAND-GARROS
20 May - 9 June 2024
