Petits As

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Les Petits As (English: Small champions) is a premier junior tennis tournament for players aged 12–14. It is held in Tarbes, France. It is often considered to be the European equivalent of the Junior Orange Bowl in Florida, United States due to the high number of international players that it attracts.

The event has seen a number of its champions go on to become slam winners, including Rafael Nadal, Michael Chang, Martina Hingis, and Kim Clijsters. Due to the relatively restrictive age range, few players have won the title more than once, although Hingis and Timea Bacsinszky have both done so. Most recently, upcoming Spanish player Carlos Boluda became the first boy to do so.

The tournament is played on indoor Green Set (hard) courts. Roughly 7,000 players enter the pre-qualifying tournaments held across France, with that number being narrowed down to 350 for the final qualifying stage, and 64 for the final tournament.[1] The event is regulated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and has businesses such as Head, Eurosport, Coca-Cola, and Peugeot amongst its portfolio of partners.[2]

Results

Boys' singles

Year Champion Runner-up Score
1983 France Jean-Baptiste Bolle Spain Jean-Manuel Naves
1984 France Frédéric Fontang Czechoslovakia Marek Miskolci[3]
1985 Netherlands Richard Krajicek France Philippe Leblanc
1986 United States Michael Chang Sweden Johan Alvenn
1987 Austria Reinhard Wawra United States David Klein
1988 United States Brian Dunn Austria Julian Knowle
1989 United States Tommy Shimada Spain Gonzalo Corrales
1990 France Maxime Boyé Sweden Magnus Norman
1991 Romania Răzvan Sabău Spain Juan Antonio Saiz
1992 France Olivier Mutis Sweden Björn Rehnquist
1993 Slovenia Miha Gregorc Romania Dymitry Caradima
1994 Spain Juan Carlos Ferrero Chile Fernando González
1995 Belgium Olivier Rochus Slovenia Gasper Martinjak
1996 France Paul-Henri Mathieu Bulgaria Todor Enev
1997 France Julien Maigret Spain Carlos Cuadrado
1998 United Kingdom Matthew Smith Croatia Mario Ančić
1999 France Richard Gasquet United States Brian Baker
2000 Spain Rafael Nadal France Julien Gely
2001 Russia Alexandre Krasnoroutski United Kingdom Andy Murray
2002 United States Dylan Arnould Switzerland Robin Roshardt
2003 United States Donald Young United States Leo Rosenberg
2004 Australia Andrew Thomas Belarus Vladimir Ignatic
2005 United States Chase Buchanan United States Lazare Kukhalashvili 6–4, 4–6, 6–4[4]
2006 Spain Carlos Boluda New Zealand Sebastian Lavie 7–6, 6–3
2007 Spain Carlos Boluda United States Christian Harrison 6–2, 6–2
2008 Canada Edward Nguyen United Kingdom Liam Broady 6–4, 7–5
2009 Serbia Nikola Milojević Croatia Borna Ćorić 6–2, 6–3
2010 France Quentin Halys United States Noah Rubin 6–1, 6–2
2011 United States Henrik Wiersholm Romania Bogdan Borza 6–2, 5–7, 6–3
2012 United States Francis Tiafoe United States William Blumberg 6–0, 6–2
2013 Italy Samuele Ramazzotti Serbia Miomir Kecmanovic 7–6(10–8), 0–6, 6–0
2014 France Rayane Roumane Germany Nicola Kuhn 5–7, 7–5, 6–1
2015 Chinese Taipei Chun-Hsin Tseng Russia Timofey Skatov 6–4 6–1

Girls' singles

Year Champion Runner-up Score Semifinalists
1983 France Sybille Niox-Château France Cécile Bourdaix
1984 France Emmanuelle Derly France Alexia Dechaume
1985 Switzerland Sandrine Jacquet Sweden Hanika Narbe
1986 United States Laxima Poruri Netherlands Gruben
1987 United States Kimberly Kessaris Austria Ursula Priller
1988 West Germany Anke Huber West Germany Katherine Denn Samuel
1989 France Nicole London Czechoslovakia Zdeňka Málková
1990 West Germany Heike Rusch United States Lindsay Davenport
1991 Switzerland Martina Hingis Madagascar Dally Randriantefy
1992 Switzerland Martina Hingis Hungary Rita Kuti-Kis
1993 United States Stephanie Hallsell Hungary Rika Vidats
1994 Russia Anna Kournikova Germany Stephanie Kovacik
1995 Croatia Mirjana Lučić Belgium Justine Henin
1996 Croatia Jelena Pandžić United States Melissa Middleton
1997 Belgium Kim Clijsters Russia Elena Bovina
1998 Russia Lina Krasnoroutskaya Germany Caroline Raba
1999 United States Bethanie Mattek Croatia Matea Mezak
2000 Russia Dinara Safina Lithuania Lina Stančiūtė
2001 Serbia and Montenegro Vojislava Lukić Slovakia Jarmila Gajdošová
2002 Switzerland Timea Bacsinszky Russia Alisa Kleybanova
2003 Switzerland Timea Bacsinszky Romania Raluca Olaru
2004 Russia Yelena Kulikova Austria Tamira Paszek
2005 Russia Ksenia Pervak France Gracia Radovanovic
2006 Canada Gabriela Dabrowski Russia Anna Arina Marenko 6–3, 6–4[5]
2007 Belarus Anna Orlik United States Nicole Gibbs 6–4, 6–1 United States Grace Min
Romania Ingrid Radu
2008 Russia Daria Gavrilova United Kingdom Laura Robson 6–3, 6–3 Belgium An-Sophie Mestach
Slovenia Nastja Kolar
2009 Russia Yulia Putintseva Russia Irina Khromacheva 6–4, 6–2 Serbia Petra Uberalová
Czech Republic Petra Rohanová
2010 Japan Tsuji Kanami Netherlands Indy de Vroome 4–6, 6–3, 6–4 Ukraine Marianna Zakarlyuk
Ukraine Oleksandra Korashvili
2011 Latvia Jeļena Ostapenko Russia Anastasiya Komardina 1–6, 6–3, 6–3 Switzerland Belinda Bencic
Russia Veronika Kudermetova
2012 Romania Jaqueline Adina Cristian United States Tornado Alicia Black 6–2, 6–3 United Kingdom Gabriella Patricia Taylor
United Kingdom Maia Lumsden
2013 United States CiCi Bellis Romania Andreea Amalia Roșca 6–0, 6–2 Russia Sofya Zhuk
Czech Republic Markéta Vondroušová
2014 Canada Bianca Vanessa Andreescu United States Claire Liu 6–4, 7–5 United States Elysia Bolton
Ukraine Katarina Zavatska
2015 Russia Anastasia Potapova Serbia Olga Danilovic 6–4, 6–4

Exhibitions

The tournament often features retired and/or active players making appearances in exhibition matches in the evening preceding the final day of play. It is common for upcoming and veteran French players to be present. In recent tournaments, players present have included:

Notable later meeting of Les Petites As competitors

In the 2011 Australian Open, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic met in the final. They had first played each other in Les Petits As in 2000 as 13-year-olds (born a week apart in May, 1987). Murray remembered winning the Petits As match "6-love, 6–1 maybe." Djokovic (3 seed in Australia 2011[6]), who had already eliminated Roger Federer (2 seed[6]) would "be just a bit tougher than that on Sunday," averred Murray. Murray (5 seed) had just beaten David Ferrer (7 seed) in the semis at Melbourne Park. Ferrer earlier in the 2011 tournament had beaten Rafael Nadal, who was the overall winner of the 2000 Petits As[7] and the top seed in the 2011 Open.[8] In the event, in Australia 2011, Djokovic beat Murray in a hard-fought but convincing straight sets win, following the match with "a warm embrace at the net as if to say to his longtime friend and rival, until next time", as one commentator put it.[9]

References

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  3. Profile, atpworldtour.com. Retrieved 2011-01-30.
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  6. 6.0 6.1 Clarey, Christopher, "Djokovic in Top Form Ousting Federer", The New York Times, January 27, 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
  7. Clarey, Christopher, "Murray Beats Ferrer to Reach Final", The New York Times, January 28, 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
  8. australianopen.com, Official Site, Nadal v. Ferrer Match Statistics. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
  9. Lin, Thomas, "Djokovic Wins Second Australian Open Title", The New York Times Straight Sets tennis blog, January 30, 2011, 6:36 am. Retrieved 2011-01-30.

External links