Canadian junior players shine at All England Club
LONDON — Once bitten, twice shy, the third junior Grand Slam final of the season turned into pure gold for North Vancouver’s Filip Peliwo.
He will be the No. 1 ranked junior boy in the world on Monday after his 7-5, 6-4 victory over defending champion Luke Saville of Australia Sunday, in the Wimbledon junior boys’ singles final.
Peliwo joined 18-year-old Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., in the winner’s circle, after Bouchard won the girls’ singles final Saturday in an emphatic 6-2, 6-2 victory over Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.
It was Bouchard’s first junior Grand Slam final, and she converted.
“I was definitely, I won’t say jealous of her, but that made me even more hungry. I just wanted to have the same feeling for myself and for Canada, to be able to win the Slam,” Peliwo said of Bouchard’s triumph. “I knew it would be a great achievement if both girls’ and boys’ champions would be Canadians. That really inspired me.”
Both teenagers handled the biggest day in their young careers with a calm that belied their inexperience.
Both finals were contested on Wimbledon’s fabled Court No. 1, before thousands of fans, with a radar gun to measure serve speed and the Hawkeye line-chal- lenge system.
Both finals also were available back home in Canada, via the Internet and on television.
“When I walked on court, I was surprised at how full it was. Then when they clapped it was much louder than I expected, as well. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is bigger than I thought,’” Bouchard said. “I felt surprisingly calm. I was happy with myself for that. But I felt like I was playing really well. So I was, you know, just staying calm and positive and focusing on one point at a time, not thinking about anything else.”
Bouchard turned right around on Sunday and made it a double, capturing the girls’ doubles title with American Taylor Townsend.
Peliwo’s singles victory was a little more arduous. He had to come back from a service-break deficit in each set, much the way he had done in previous matches leading up to this one.
“I think the biggest thing was that I wasn’t waiting for him to make a mistake as much,” he said.
“I was going for my shots and trying to dictate the points, whereas in the previous two finals I was playing passive and waiting for my opponent to miss and give me the match, which isn’t going to happen very often to guys that made finals,” Peliwo said.
“They’re there for a reason, not because their opponents gave away the matches.”