Star junior to play for NZ at Wimbledon
NEW Zealand has a world class junior tennis player but it won’t be for long.
Lulu Sun has appeared on the International Tennis Federation’s rankings at 25 in the world and representing New Zealand.
It makes her the country’s best junior since Cameron Norrie reached No 10 in the world in 2013.
Sadly, like Norrie, who now plays as a Brit, Sun won’t be representing New Zealand for long.
Although the 17-year-old Sun was born in New Zealand in April, 2001, and started playing tennis at the age of five, neither of her parents are Kiwis and she lives in Geneva, Switzerland.
Until recently she has played as a Swiss, including at the French Open.
She has also played under the name Lulu Radovcic.
In 2015, Sun played in the ITF junior tournaments in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland but that is the only time she has played ITF tournaments in New Zealand.
It appears that the reason she is playing as a Kiwi is because she wants to compete at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October.
Sun hadn’t sorted out obtaining a Swiss passport in time for the Youth Olympic Games, where it’s a more complicated process to prove your nationality than it is with the ITF.
So she changed to being a Kiwi so she could enter the Youth Olympic Games, though it’s believed she didn’t do this in time to compete in Buenos Aires.
Eventually she’ll become a Swiss national but, for now, New Zealand tennis fans can sort of GETTY IMAGES bask in the knowledge that this country has a great junior.
Lulu is already making progress beyond junior tennis.
She has a WTA ranking of 840 and last week made it to the semifinals of a US$25,000 tourna- ment in Portugal.
She will be the only Kiwi at Junior Wimbledon. Valentina Ivanov is ranked 113, was unlikely to make into qualifying and last week withdrew her entry.
New Zealand Fed Cup captain Neil Carter got in touch with Sun recently to see if there was any chance of her wanting to represent the country of her birth but it appears she wants to play as a Swiss tennis player.
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe has entered doubles qualifying for Wimbledon, where she will partner Victoria Rodriguez from Mexico.
Michael Venus, Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak will all be playing in the main draw of the gentlemen’s doubles.