ITF

ITFWorld // WINTER 2018 39 While more seeds made it through to the latter stages of the girls' draw, there were still some headline-grabbing early casualties, with American Alexa Noel crashing out in the first round following defeat to France's Yasmine Mansouri. An ever more seismic departure occurred in the quarterfinals as top seed and reigning Roland Garros champion Cori Gauff bowed out after being overshadowed by unseeded Ukrainian Dasha Lopatetskaya, 64 36 62. Wang would have more luck against qualifier Lopatetskaya, dispatching the Kharkiv-born right-hander, 61 57 63, on an indoor court due to the presence of rain. This was the only match in which she conceded a set during the girls' singles draw. The left-hander's other clashes had seen her, in fairly clinical and ruthless fashion, dispose of Emma Navarro of the United States, Russia's Kamilla Rakhimova, another American in the form of Lea Ma and Japan's Naho Sato, who had accounted for fifth seed Caty McNally. Burel's pathway to the final had included a hefty semifinal tussle with Colombian fourth seed Maria Camila Osorio Serrano, which she won 75 16 76(3), and victories over Great Britain's Emma Raducanu, Violet Apisah of Papua New Guinea, Thailand's Mananchaya Sawangkaew and Sada Nahimana of Burundi. Such results culminated in a first ever meeting between Wang and Rennes-born Burel for the final Grand Slam title of the year, which the former duly secured courtesy of a 76(4), 62 triumph. "I'm happy," said Wang. "I'm very happy. I think maybe my mum was crying. It was a different kind of opponent but I just thought to myself: 'try to play my very best'. I tried to enjoy this match." Wang's victory also means the last 21 Grand Slams in the junior girls' category have all been won by a different player. Not since Switzerland's Belinda Bencic in 2013 has there been a back-to-back winner. Top seeds Gauff and McNally, meanwhile, put aside their disappointing singles campaigns to prevail in the girls' doubles, beating fellow Americans Hailey Baptiste and Dalayna Hewitt 63 62. The boy's doubles was won by Bulgaria's Adrian Andreev and Great Britain's Anton Matusevich following a 64 26 [10-8] success over American duo Emilio Nava and Axel Nefve. ■ No other boy from Brazil had ever conquered the Junior US Open. Thiago Seyboth Wild became the first Clara Burel lost her second Junior Grand Slam final of 2018 in New York ABOVE: Italy's Lorenzo Musetti fell at the final hurdle in the boys' draw

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