The Hong Kong trio of Kevin Wong, Brian Yeung, and Jonathan Cho is set to face No. 5 seeds Chinese Taipei first up in the round robins at this year's World Junior Tennis Asia/Oceania Qualifying in Kuching, Malaysia. Play will commence immediately following the opening ceremony scheduled for Tuesday morning 08:30 local time.
On Wednesday, Hong Kong is then slated to face No. 3 seeds Australia before going up against Sri Lanka on Thursday to wrap up the round robin stage.
The first and second placed teams of each group will then progress to the knockout stage where the top-4 placed teams shall qualify for the World Junior Tennis Finals later this summer, to be held in Prostejov, Czech Republic, from August 3-8.
Captain of the Hong Kong WJT Boys' team, Alistair Todd, wasted no time in sending the players out to the practice courts on Sunday, which included a morning as well as an afternoon session, in an attempt to acclimatize quickly to the local conditions in Kuching.
Matches will be played on the hard courts of the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association Centre (www.itfsarawak.org.my).
The groupings are as follows (Brackets denote seedings):
Group A – (1)Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, (8)China
Group B – (4)Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, (6)Uzbekistan
Group C – (3)Australia, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, (5)Chinese Taipei
Group D – (2)Korea, Philippines, Myanmar, (7)India
The format of play is similar to the one used in Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup matches, which is made up of two singles match-ups (No. 2 player v. No. 2 player, followed by No. 1 v. No. 1) and then finishing with a deciding doubles.
The Africa Qualifying event already took place last month in Casablanca, Morocco, where South Africa won both boys and girls' events to emerge as the lone representative of their region at the World Finals in August later this year.
African Team Qualifying completed in Casablanca (itftennis.com, 20 Apr 2009)
At the World Junior Tennis South American qualifying in Punta de Este, teams from Peru, Argentina, and Columbia had qualified for the WJT Final in the boys' event, while Argentina, Brazil, and Chile also made it in the girls' equivalent.
The qualifiers for Europe, meanwhile, is slated for July 3-5 when the Boys' Final Qualifying will be decided by the Copa Del Sol in Spain and the Girls' Final Qualifying via the Europa Cup in Italy.
Last year's WJT Asia/Oceania Qualifying in Shenzhen saw the 6th-seeded HK trio of Kelvin Lam, Kevin Wong, and Vincent Yau come home in a very respectable joint-5th place overall alongside Chinese Taipei after the 5th Place Playoff was called off due to bad weather.
In fact, that was the highest placing registered by a WJT Boys' contingent from Hong Kong since 2001, when Martin Sayer led Team HK to 3rd overall behind Korea and Indonesia at the Asia/Oceania Qualifying in Sri Lanka.
The result was good enough to earn Hong Kong a spot in the 2001 Cesky Telecom World Junior Tennis Finals in the Czech Republic where the team eventually placed 16th overall. That year, Novak Djokovic, the highest ranked player present, powered his top-seeded Yugoslavian team all the way to the final before they were upset by 6th-seeded Germany in the title showdown.
Interestingly, several names that appeared on the rosters of some of the other teams at the 2001 Final are also present in NCAA Division I today.
Examples of such include Canada's Bruno Agostinelli (Kentucky), Colombia's Robert Farah (USC), and South Africa's Derek Drabble (Washington), to name a few.
The only other instance in which a boys' squad from the territory reached the WJT Final took place 15 years ago when Jason Sankey and Wayne Wong constituted the original two-pronged attack that brought Team HK a first-ever spot to the final held at the Yamanakako Tennis Club in Japan.
That year, the duo from Hong Kong crossed swords with notable competitors such as Aussie Lleyton Hewitt and Xavier Malisse, who took his Belgian side all the way to the final before getting upended by Italy in the third set of the deciding doubles.
Other players to have won the WJT Final over the years include Spain's Alberto Martin (1991), Argentina's Guillermo Coria and David Nalbandian (1996), Frenchmen Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet (1999), not to mention current ATP World Tour No. 1 and four-time Roland Garros winner, Rafael Nadal (2000).
The World Junior Tennis competition, the International Team Competition for players aged 14 & Under, was started by the ITF in 1991. Notable past participants include Justine Henin, David Nalbandian, Daniela Hantuchova, Lleyton Hewitt, Dinara Safina, Novak Djokovic, Anna Tchakvetadze, Maria Kirilenko, and current junior world No. 1, Laura Robson.
Did You Know…
The "King of Clay", Rafael Nadal, lost only once on the ITF World Junior Circuit, and that was the result of a semifinal loss at Junior Wimbledon in 2002 after he had reportedly turned pro the year before?