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Sofia "Sonya" Kenin

237K views 4K replies 89 participants last post by  tony p 
#1 ·
Remember this cute little girl that Clijsters was hanging out with in Miami in 2005? That's Sofia "Sonya" Kenin. She has just turned 11 and judging by her results she's really talented.
I found her website http://www.sonyakenin.us where you can watch some interesting videos (e.g. with Kournikova). It seems her parents are doing a good job finding a balance between tennis and typical kids' life :)
Wish her a lot of success:)
 
#2 ·
GL Sofia!
 
#4 ·
Wow, she was like 7 then when Clijsters was with her in Miami. Best of luck to her. Hopefully she will develop into a great player. :)
 
#6 ·
She didn't have great results at Eddie Herr (lost in 1st round) nor at Orange Bowl (lost in 2nd round). But she really had bad draws, the girls she lost to at OB reached the final and has had some really impressive wins this week.
Good luck to her wherever she plays next :)
 
#12 ·
Small update:
Sofia played her first 3 ITF tournaments and did really well :yeah:
In the first two she got a MD WC and won 3 matches but was unlucky to play eventual winner Daria Sharapova in 1/8 and then no. 1 seed Renaud in 1/16. In her 3rd tournament she qualified but lost in 2nd round to McAdoo who is Top 300 in juniors now. In total she won 7 matches and lost 3. She didn't get many points as these ITFs had big draws and players didn't get any points unless they reached 3rd round.
Sofia is now #1351 in junior rankings and there are only 2 players younger than her that have a better ranking :)
 
#13 ·
Sofia won USTA G14 National Championships :yeah:
She also jumped over 300 positions and is only around 20 places outside Top 1000 in the junior ranking after reaching QF in a G4 before losing to Helbauer 5:7 in the 3rd. Sofia was the only player to win a set against Helbauer who is a Top 200 player so it's a good sign :yeah:
 
#17 ·
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 :yeah:
 
#19 ·
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 :yeah:
 
#20 ·
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.
 
#21 ·
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).
 
#23 ·
Here we go again :eek:
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.
 
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