Last week Andy Murray led the way for British tennis with a fine display at the Australian Open, but in the Under 14’s, Bedfordshire’s Josh Sapwell led the way for British Junior Boys in France having reached the quarter-finals in the singles and semi finals in the doubles. The 13 year old who lives in Flitwick has been at the top of his age group in Britain for the past 4 years having won the Under 12’s National title in 2008 and a European Grade 3 event in Sweden in November 2009.

Last week, Sapwell and other top British Under 14’s travelled to Tarbes in France to compete in ‘Les Petits As’ tournament, which translated to English is ‘Small Champions’. Tarbes started in 1983 as an international tournament primarily for 12-14 year olds. It is now regarded as the best tournament in the world at 14&Under level with players travelling from over 50 countries to play. The tournament has become so popular that some matches are televised on French TV with Eurosport offering a round-up of the action during the latter stages of the tournament. Past competitors who have made the latter stages when they were U14 include Federer, Cillic, Murray, Baghdatis, Del Potro, Djokovic, Soderling, Nadal, Safin, Monfils, Gasquet in the boys and Hingis, Clistjers, Henin, Ivanovic, Safina and Dementiava in the girls event.
 
This year’s event ran between 21st and 31st January on the indoor Green Set hard courts, with roughly 7000 players entering the pre-qualifying tournaments held across France, with numbers being restricted to 350 for the final qualifying stage and 64 for the final tournament.
 
Sapwell gained direct entry to the qualifying event, because of last years’ end ranking of 194 (European 14&Under ranking). He sailed through qualifying having played 3 matches to set up a 1st round clash against European ranked Number 19 from Sweden, Daniel Windahl. Sapwell stepped up to the mark and dominated the match by winning exactly 75% of the points on his 1st serve and only allowing Windahl to break him once in a 6-2, 6-2 victory. Number 12 in the European Rankings, Bogdan Bobrov, was next in line as Sapwell dominated in victorious fashion winning 6-0, 6-2. Sapwell went on to play the number 3 seed, O Nagy from Slovakia in the round of the last 16. This match was a true test for Sapwell as he makes his winning presence felt by taking the match 7-6, 4-6, 6-4 to propel him into the quarter finals. The next round proved very touch for Sapwell having played 10 matches already in the competition and fatigue set in during the 3rd set against American Noah Rubin. Unfortunately Sapwell lost 5-7, 6-4, 4-6 to Rubin who eventually was the runner up in the final but this week had proved an incredible experience for Sapwell and should propel his European ranking into the top 40.
 
During the week Sapwell also competed in the doubles event, with further success! He teamed up with fellow Brit, Alexander Sendegeya, who trains at the world famous Bolletieri’s Academy in Florida. The British duo advanced through the event to reach the semi finals when they eventually lost 7-5, 6-3 to the Australian pair, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Li, who were the eventual winners of the tournament.

Josh now travels to Sweden to represent Team GB in the Winter Cup. The Winter Cup invites the top 3 players from each country to compete in team tennis against each countries, which will offer Sapwell another fantastic opportunity to compete against the cream of junior tennis.

Released: 03 February 2010