British juniors Charlie Robertson and Mika Stojsavljevic enjoyed impressive campaigns at the ITF World Tour Junior Finals in Chengdou, China.
The ITF Junior Finals are the junior equivalent to the ATP and WTA Finals – bringing together eight of the top-ranked junior players in the world to compete for the coveted title.
Many of the top tour players have competed at the event in the past, including Grand Slam champions Marketa Vondrousova, Elena Rybakina, Sofia Kenin and Jelena Ostapenko, as well as past champions Holger Rune and Andrey Rublev
Both Brits qualified as top in their round-robin groups but lost in close semi-finals – Robertson eventually finished the boys’ singles tournament in third place while Stojsavljevic was fourth in the girls’ singles.
Robertson won two of his three group stage matches against Korea’s Jangjun Kim and Maxim Mrva to book his place in the semi-finals.
However, in the final four he lost to Spanish top seed Rafael Jodar 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 in a highly competitive semi-final clash.
The loss meant that he went into the third/fourth place play-off where he faced Romania’s Luca Preda. Having lost to the second seed in the group stages, the 17-year-old Brit emerged as the winner this time around as Preda retired trailing 6-3.
In the girls’ singles, junior US Open champion Stojsavljevic got off to a blistering start with straight set victories over Americans Kristina Pencikova and Tyra Caterina Grant.
Awaiting her in the semi-finals was junior world No.1 and Australian Open and Wimbledon runner-up Emerson Jones.
The Brit had one their most recent meeting at the US Open last month, but this time the Australian managed to edge a three-set epic 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(5) before going on to win the title.
Stojsavljevic went on to lose the third/fourth place play-off to Belgium’s Jeline Vandromme 6-3, 6-4.
These were the best British performances at the ITF Junior Finals since Katie Swan finished runner-up in 2016.
Both players have been supported by the National Academies in Stirling and Loughborough.