By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 17 Jul 2017 • 13:57
WIMBLEDON CHAMPION: Malaga's Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
JUST 24 hours after Garbiñe Muguruza became only the second Spanish ladies’ champion at Wimbledon, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, landed the boys’ singles trophy.
The 18-year-old from Malaga beat big-serving Argentinean Axel Geller 7-6(2), 6-3 to become just the second Spanish Junior Wimbledon champion and the first for 50 years after Manuel Orantes won in 1967.
Both players came into the final on the back of big wins after Geller had taken down the No.1 seed Corentin Moutet in the semi-finals and Davidovich Fokina had beaten world No.3 Wu Yibing in the last eight.
Although Davidovich Fokina was the seeded player of the two – and ranked one place higher in the ITF’s junior listings – in many ways it was Geller who stepped onto the No.1 Court as favourite after warming up for Wimbledon with victory at the grass-court junior event in Roehampton last week.
But once the first 12 games were shared it was No.8 seed Davidovich Fokina who raised his level, sprinting into a 4-0 lead in the tie-break before quickly turning that into a 7-2 shootout success.
After taking an injury timeout for a back problem after three games of the second, Geller could only stay with his Spanish opponent until the eighth game when Davidovich Fokina broke for 5-3. Soon afterwards a delicate backhand drop shot sealed the win.“I’m very happy to be the second [Spanish] junior champion of Wimbledon. I’m in shock,” said the world No.10.“I was thinking, ‘Okay, I want to win this. I want to show the people who I am, that I want to play tennis, professional tennis. I want to show them what I want to do with my life.’”
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