Quarterfinal clashes set in Orange Bowl 18s

December 9, 2016 06:58 AM

By Pat Mitsch, special to USTA.com

PLANTATION, FLA. – It was a day that saw several top seeds fall at the Metropolia Orange Bowl, but, above all, it yielded anticipation for the matchups between those still standing.

Both No. 1 seeds will face their toughest tests of the tournament thus far in Friday’s quarterfinals, with Girls’ 18s top seed Anastasia Potapova meeting seventh-seeded American Usue Arconada (pictured above) of College Park, Md., in a rematch of the Wimbledon junior quarterfinals, won by Potapova in straight sets, and reigning Boys’ 18s champion Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia meeting 11th-seeded German Rudolf Molleker.

Second-seeded Yibing Wu of China will also square off against fifth-seeded Kenneth Raisma of Estonia in a matchup of Top 15 world-ranked juniors.

Those matches will have a seeded player advance, even though that wasn’t a trend from Thursday’s third round.

In the Girls’ 18s, unseeded Carson Branstine (Orange, Calif.) took out No. 3 Claire Liu (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), 6-1, 2-6, 6-3. Argentine Maria Lourdes Carle, this year’s Eddie Herr Girls’ 18s champ, upended No. 4 Taylor Johnson (Redondo Beach, Calif.), 6-2, 6-1. Slovenia’s Kaja Juvan, the No. 9 seed, beat sixth-seeded Serbian Olga Danilovic, 6-4, 6-0. Meanwhile, American wild card Whitney Osuigwe (Bradenton, Fla.) – a 14-year old ranked No. 334 – joins Branstine and Arconada in the quarterfinals after beating Latvian Daniela Vismane, ranked No. 48, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.

In the Boys’ 18s, No. 13 seed Sam Riffice will meet Sebastian Baez, last year’s Orange Bowl Boys 16s’ champion, while unseeded Danny Thomas (Pickerington, Ohio) will meet No. 4 Yuta Shimizu after beating countryman Oliver Crawford (Spartanburg, S.C.).

Three of the Girls’ 16s semifinalists are American. Katie Volynets (Walnut Creek, Calif.) will meet Angelica Blake (Boca Raton, Fla.), while No. 14 Imani Graham (Saint Johns, Fla.) gets Austrian Anabella Koller.

Glen Cove, N.Y.’s Steven Sun, meanwhile, is the lone American remaining in the Boys’ 16s semis, as he meets No. 3 seed Anton Matusevich of Great Britain.


(Photo credit: Rob Foldy)

 

Back

 
 

 
 
Close