By Sally Milano
2017 US Open girls’ champion Amanda Anisimova and 2017 French Open girls’ winner Whitney Osuigwe are among the American junior players who have been selected to represent the United States at the upcoming Junior Fed Cup and Davis Cup by BNP Paribas Finals.
The premier 16-and-under world team competitions will be held Sept. 19-24 on red clay courts in Budapest, Hungary.
Joining 16-year-old Anisimova, from Aventura, Fla., and 15-year-old Osuigwe (pictured above), of Bradenton, Fla., on the Junior Fed Cup team is 15-year-old Cincinnati native Caty McNally.
The boys' Junior Davis Cup team features William Grant, 16, of Boca Raton, Fla.; Govind Nanda, 16, from Cerritos, Calif.; and Tyler Zink, 16, of Bradenton.
USTA National Coach Erik Kortland will captain the girls' team, while USTA National Coach Eric Nunez will head up the boys'.
The competition includes 16 nations on both the boys’ and girls’ sides, competing first in round-robin groups, then in a knockout bracket to determine the winner. In 2014, the U.S. swept both titles for the second time in seven years. Last year, the U.S. girls’ team that featured both Anisimova and McNally finished as the runner-up for the second straight year, this time to Poland, while the U.S. boys finished fourth.
Anisimova is the youngest player ranked in the WTA Top 200, at No. 189. She recently won the girls' singles title at the US Open Junior Championships, capping a summer season in which she made her Grand Slam main-draw debut at the French Open, at age 15, one year after reaching the French Open girls’ singles final. Osuigwe, whose father, Desmond, coaches at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, won the Roland Garros girls’ singles title this year and ascended to No. 2 in the ITF World Junior Rankings. And McNally reached the singles quarterfinals at the French Open and, with Osuigwe, reached the girls’ doubles final at Wimbledon.
Grant reached the singles semifinals and won the doubles title at the USTA Boys’ 16s National Championships in August. Nanda is a two-time Team USA National Junior Team member and is the No. 3-rated prospect nationally in the Class of 2019 by TennisRecruiting.net. Zink won the Boys’ 16s national doubles title, with Grant, and the Boys’ 18s National Clay Court doubles title this summer.
The U.S. has won three Junior Fed Cup titles (2008, 2012, 2014) and three Junior Davis Cup titles (1999, 2008, 2014).
Former U.S. junior international team members include Jim Courier, Andy Roddick, James Blake, Lindsay Davenport and Sloane Stephens. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have also represented their respective countries in junior international team competition.
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