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Freakan · Nov 24th, 2012, 12:32 PM

Sonya's website was updated and it turns out she has grown quite a lot: she's 5'2" which is 1,57m (not 1,625m as her website states). That's definitely good news as her height seemed to be an important issue before.

Freakan · Dec 2nd, 2012, 06:31 PM

Eddie Herr U14 turned out to be a great tournament with a very disappointing ending.
Suprisingly (she wasn't the favorite) until the final she was totally dominating the field winning easily against quality opponents without dropping more than 3 games in a set: 6/0 6/0; 6/3 6/1; 6/2 6/2; 6/3 6/0; 6/3 6/2. It seemed that the final would be the same story when she was 6:1 5:2 up againts Fanny Stollar from Hungary but then she choked massively while her opponent raised her level and eventually Sofia lost 6/1 5/7 3/6.
I really liked her game - very mature for her age. She hits quite hard, has great variety, mixes up the pace, has nice drop shots, creates nice angles and seemed pretty composed until the choke happened. She doesn't really have any big weaknesses (well she's short and you could see that her limited reach did hurt her a few times) and should be developing into a very good player.
It was probably the biggest match of her career, so I can understand the choke, hopefully she'll learn from this and take the title at Orange Bowl

Mary Chain · Dec 7th, 2012, 06:11 PM

Pics from Eddie Herr

Freakan · Dec 15th, 2012, 03:13 PM

If there's an award for a player with crappiest draws, Sofia will have no competition.
She lost to Jokic 1/6 2/6 at Nike Junior Cup in 1/8 finals which means in her last 4 losses she always lost to the eventual winner. The worst part is that besides Eddie Herr, where she was a RU, she had to face the eventual winner very early: in 1/8 and twice in 1/16 and the players she lost to were very dominant in other matches. Also, in her last 6 losses, she faced the eventual winner 5 times.
The bad luck has to end someday, hopefully it'll be soon

jusluvinjrtennis · Dec 15th, 2012, 06:48 PM

I know your a big fan and that's great. I just wasn't as impressed with her game. She was spraying balls all over the place and I didn't see the pace. Good little player for sure but has a ways to go. As far as the bad draws, well, she is playing in her age group so to lose to the eventual winner that many times is just saying that there are quite a few girls better than her. I would agree with you but she's 14 now and playing in the 14's. Just my thoughts.

Freakan · Dec 15th, 2012, 11:00 PM

Well when did you see her? Because in Eddie Herr final until 6:1 5:2 she was very impressive and didn't make too many UE's at all, after that she just got very nervous and made some ridiculous errors... She's short, so she's gonna need more time to develop her game than players like Abanda.
As for the draws - not exactly. 2 of these tournaments were U14 (2 of 3 biggest U14 tournaments there are) and 2 were U18, so it's not like she's getting spanked by medicore girls her age (she's born in November and at that stage girls born at the beginning of the year have a huge advantage over her). She's also on entry list for a 25k in USA in January, so she's just mixing up all kinds of tournaments. But I agree there are girls her age that are than her but 1st year on junior tour is just the beginning, you start from scratch, so many things depend on luck, draws etc (e.g. Shishkina is ranked outside Top 150 even though her results show she's already playing Top 30 tennis while highest ranked girl from '98 is Xu who's just been whoring up weak Chinese tournaments all year long).

jusluvinjrtennis · Dec 16th, 2012, 12:16 PM

What your saying is definitely true.

quote: 98 is Xu who's just been whoring up weak Chinese tournaments all year long).

haha now that is funny!!! (and true)

Freakan · Dec 16th, 2012, 10:12 PM

Here we go again

She got Gorches in 2nd tound at Orange Bowl - Mexican girl who had a very good year on junior tour and is probably among 5 highest ranked players in the draw. I do think Sofia is the favourite between these 2 but it'll be a tough match for sure.