Mara Guth showed a strong performance at the Junior Orange Bowl and only dropped out in the semi-finals. The 14-year-old even beat the tournament’s top seeders on Key Biscayne in Florida on her way to the final four rounds.
In the final round, Guth, number nine of the seed list, was defeated by US-American Elvina Lalieva 2:6,7:6 (7:3), 4:6. The protégé of TC Bad Vilbel beat the favourite Alexandra Yepifanova (USA) 1:6,7:5,6:0. The German champion in the age group U14 did not compete against the Bulgarian Dariya Radulova for third place on Wednesday.
The Junior Orange Bowl is one of the world’s most important and important junior competitions. In the U14 competition, greats such as Janko Tipsarevic, Juan Martin del Potro or Justine Henin have already entered the winners’ list.
The last German winner was Tommy Haas among the under 14-year-olds in 1992. Heike Rusch won in 1990, one year earlier Marketa Kochta had been on the podium. From an Austrian point of view, Tamira Paszek triumphed at the Junior Orange Bowl in 2004.
The U12 competition was also won by Steffi Graf (1981) and Laura Siegemund (2000). Click here for the entire draw of the Junior Orange Bowl.