ITF

8 ITFWORLD WINTER 2017 A XEL GELLER is boys ITF Junior World Champion after reaching two Grand Slam singles finals in 2017 and capturing the Wimbledon boys doubles title. The 18-year-old reached a total of six finals on the ITF Junior Circuit, winning two titles, and in doubles competed in three finals, winning two. Geller, from Buenos Aires, is the first Argentine boy to be named junior World Champion for 22 years, and third overall, Federico Browne and Mariano Zabaleta having received the honour in back-to- back years in 1994-1995. Having started the season outside the junior Top 100, Geller moved rapidly up the rankings. He won the title at Ecuador's Mundial Juvenil de Tenis in January, and was a finalist at Argentina's Sudamericano Individual. He made his Grand Slam debut at Roland Garros, losing in the first round, but demonstrated his preference for faster surfaces by winning the title on his grass court debut at the Grade 1 event in Roehampton. The most successful week of Geller's junior season followed at Wimbledon, where he finished runner-up in singles, losing to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 76(2) 63 in the final, but won the doubles, partnering Chinese Taipei's Yu Hsiou Hsu to defeat Jurij Rodionov and Michael Vrbensky 64 64. This pushed him up to No. 5 in the rankings. Geller reached the final of a third successive singles tournament at the Grade 1 event in Maryland, finishing runner-up, before advancing to his second junior Grand Slam final at the US Open, where he fell to Wu Yibing 64 64. He signed off his junior career by finishing in third place at the ITF Junior Masters in October, which secured his place at the top of the rankings. Geller now moves to California's Stanford University to play college tennis. ITF WORLD CHAMPIONS D AVID WAGNER is the first recipient of a newly-created quad ITF World Champion award. Players are eligible to compete in the wheelchair tennis quad division if they have a permanent physical disability that results in significant loss of function in three or more extremities, while also fulfilling the sport's minimum disability criteria. Inaugural quad wheelchair World Champion he may be, but the 43-year- old Wagner has been competing on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour for 16 years and 2017 marked the eighth time he had finished at the top of the quad singles rankings. He ended the year with a 51-9 quad singles record, winning 12 individual titles including the US Open and two Super Series events, and finishing runner-up at two further tournaments. The Oregon native won home titles at the Arizona Open and Cajun Classic in March, and represented USA in the BNP Paribas World Team Cup in May. During a highly successful European summer swing, Wagner lifted the singles trophies at five consecutive tournaments: the BNP Paribas Open de France, Swiss Open, German Open, Belgian Open and British Open. Back in the US, he won his third US Open singles title and sixth Grand Slam singles title by defeating Andy Lapthorne 75 36 64, and teamed with his British rival to win the doubles event at Flushing Meadows for the eighth time. Wagner's success in New York started another run of five successive tournament victories, with titles following at the Sardinia Open, French Riviera Open, Bath Indoor and the NEC Masters, where he edged Lapthorne to finish the year at No. 1. In doubles, Wagner captured 11 titles in 2017 including his tenth UNIQLO Wheelchair Doubles Masters title with compatriot Nick Taylor.

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