Tebbutt: Peliwo in Junior Final

Filip Peliwo of Vancouver will play for the 2012 boys singles championship at the Australian Open on Saturday. Peliwo defeated Mackenzie McDonald of the United States 6-4, 6-4 in Friday’s semifinals and will now face top seed Luke Saville of Australia in the final.

Peliwo beat Saville last week in the final of the warm-up Traralgon International by a 2-6, 7-6, 6-4 score in a two-hour match.

I had a chance to speak to him after he beat McDonald and asked him what he thought Saville might try to do differently this time. “I think he’ll try to take his chances a bit more,” said Peliwo, who turns 18 next Monday. “That was the only time I played him so I still don’t know him all that well. I’ll try to do the same things I did last week when I started playing well.”

A year ago, Peliwo lost in the first round of both Traralgon and the Australian Open junior events.

“Obviously, since I’m in the final, that’s a pretty big deal to me,” he said. “I’m excited but I’m also going to try to focus on doing what I’ve been doing – just not get overwhelmed by everything...by the crowd that’s obviously going to support him.”

About 5-foot-10, Peliwo is an excellent mover on the court – arguably the fastest among all the current crop of juniors. He is strong off the ground and concentrates well, which wasn’t always the case. “I’ve really improved that part of my game,” he said. “I used to lose my concentration. It was a roller-coaster – I’d play well for a few games and then sort make a few bad errors.”

The match will start at about 3 p.m. (11 p.m. EST in Canada on Friday) and will be played in the main stadium – Rod Laver Arena.

Saville, who turns 18 on February 1, two days after Peliwo, won the Wimbledon junior boys event in 2011.

Peliwo is the third Canadian in six years to play for a junior Grand Slam title. In 2006, Philip Bester of Vancouver reached the French Open final and was beaten by Martin Klizen of Slovakia. Later that same year, Peter Polansky of Thornhill, Ont., made it to the US Open final and lost to Dusan Lojda of the Czech Republic.
Peliwo is being coached in Australia by Tennis Canada’s Jocelyn Robichaud who, as a junior, won the doubles titles at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open in 1996.

Below is a picture of Robichaud with Peliwo after he won his quarter-final match on Thursday.

Peliwo is a very crafty player who gets the most out of his talents. It will be a big challenge for him to beat an Aussie and to play in 15,000-seat Rod Laver Arena. But he has made great strides already in 2012 and has a fighting chance to give Canada its first ever singles title at a Grand Slam junior event.

BOUCHARD WILTS AND LOSES

It all started well for Eugenie Bouchard of Montreal in her girls semifinal against Yulia Putintseva of Russia. She led 3-0 in the opening set with points for 4-0 and 4-1 leads. But at that moment, she started to feel light-headed, dizzy and nauseous. After she dropped the first set, she struggled mightily and wound up losing 7-5, 6-1 to the 17-year-old Muscovite.

Bouchard, who said she felt like she had no energy, moved very slowly between points.

The second-seeded Canadian was tearful immediately after the match but was remarkably composed when she encountered a pair of media types about an hour later.
“It sucks,” she said about her misfortune, which was likely the result of drinking too much water. “It’s my goal this year to win one of the Grand Slams. I’ll just wait until the next Grand Slam (Roland Garros) and be physically ready.”

As is clear in the picture below, Bouchard was playing without any kind of wrap or support on her legs. That is a good sign because she has had ongoing troubles with shin splints.

Yves Boulais, husband of former Canadian player Patricia Hy-Boulais, is in Australia with Bouchard and will travel with her next week when she attempts to defend her title at the $25,000 ITF tournament in Burnie, Tasmania.

For the rest of the year, coaching duties for the resident of Westmount in Montreal will be divided between Boulais and former Wimbledon runner-up Nathalie Tauziat of France.

It seemed to me that Bouchard was a little more irritable on court during this year’s Australian Open than I have seen her in the past. Talking with Boulais, he said that he thought she had maybe put too much pressure on herself to win, and that the No. 2 seeding added even more.
With a WTA ranking of No. 305, Bouchard only plans to play the juniors at the Grand Slam events in 2012, concentrating on ITF Futures and Challenger events to get her ranking up.

She has turned pro so the U.S. college tennis scholarship route is no longer an option.

Seeming more mature and self-confident than when I was last around her, Bouchard said she will be cheering for Maria Sharapova (against Victoria Azarenka) in Saturday’s women’s final. She finds that Sharapova’s grunting/shrieking is not nearly as offensive as Azarenka’s.

DJOKOVIC BEATS MURRAY

It was a lovely night in Rod Laver Arena for the Novak Djokovic – Andy Murray semifinal.

As I sat in the stands early in the match with the roof open and the crowd of about 15,000 surrounding the two-tone blue court, I said to the French reporter beside me, Pascal Coville, that I thought no other stadium at a Grand Slam tournament is as pleasant to sit in as Rod Laver Arena on a southern hemisphere summer night.

It is large but the only luxury suites are situated at the very top so it has a nice intimate feel and really no bad seats.

Coville agreed with me and but went further and remarked about the quality of the air. I’d never really thought about that but, with Australia being vast and not very populated on its own island continent, it made sense that the air quality is better than in France in Europe or Canada next door to an industrial colossus like the USA.
As for the match, it had to be discouraging for Murray because basically Djokovic proved again that he is the better player and won 6-3, 3-6, 6-7(4), 6-1, 7-5.

Murray battled well but he could never take over rallies and dominate play the way Djokovic could, at least when he wasn’t experiencing either breathing or injury problems. Lleyton Hewitt, doing TV commentary after losing to the Serb last Monday, remarked that Djokovic hits the ball consistently very deep. He did that a lot of the time against Murray and it just underlined what versatile ground strokes he has, and why there is currently no one who can match him.

Djokovic’s apparent physical issues have now cropped up in consecutive matches, David Ferrer and Murray. It will be intriguing to see how he pulls up on Sunday for the final against Nadal, whom he beat six times in a row in 2011.

A BIT OF OZ

The two little girls here were about to carry flowers out onto the court at the beginning of the ladies doubles final on Friday. They were standing near the entrance to the women’s locker room. Normally picture taking is not allowed there, but a couple of security people were lenient and allowed me to photograph the girls and their flowers.