Henri Kontinen marches on at US Open

Finnish tennis hope into last eight in boys' singles and semi-finals in boys' doubles

Henri Kontinen

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Henri Kontinen, the 18-year-old widely tipped as Finland’s next tennis player to shake up the ATP, has continued his steady progress in the boys’ singles and doubles at the US Open, the last Grand Slam event of the year.
      Seeded 4th in the boys’ singles, Kontinen has made it through to the last eight, and with his Indonesian partner Christopher Rungkat he is into the semi-finals of the boys’ doubles.
     
Kontinen’s second round opponent, the unseeded Dino Marcan of Croatia, proved to be a tough customer, but Kontinen won through in three sets 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.
      He then met Alex Llompart of Puerto Rico, another unseeded player, and had a much more comfortable time of it, winning 6-3, 6-1.
      Next up is Filip Krajinovic of Serbia, who put out the 6th seed Guillaume Rufin of France to reach the last eight.
      After the ignominious first-round departure of 2nd-seeded Bernard Tomic of Australia, Kontinen is the highest-ranked player left in the bottom half of the draw, but if he makes it all the way through to the final the chances are he will have to play either the top seed Tsung-Hua Yang of Taiwan or his nemesis in this year’s Wimbledon final, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, the 3rd seed in New York.
     
In the doubles, Kontinen and Rungkat (the 2nd seeds here after their victory at the French Open earlier in the year) eased into the semi-finals at the expense of the US pairing of Devin Britton and Jordan Cox (6-3, 6-1) and the 7th seeds, Cheng Peng Hsieh and Tsung-Hua Yang of Taiwan (6-2, 6-4).
      In the semis, the Finnish-Indonesian duo will face unseeded opposition in the shape of the now-familiar Alex Llompart and his partner Marcelo Arevalo (El Salvador).
      The seedings in the boys' doubles have not held up well: of the final four pairings, only Kontinen and Rungkat were forecast to reach this stage of the competition.
     
Finland’s current tennis No.1 Jarkko Nieminen won the boys’ singles at the US Open in 1999, and now Kontinen is three hard matches away from emulating the feat.
      At Wimbledon, he and Rungkat withdrew from the doubles when Kontinen made it to the final of the boys' singles.
      It remains to be seen whether or not they will play on in New York if the Finnish half of the team progresses further. Christopher Rungkat has already been eliminated from the singles competition.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Wimbledon finalist Henri Kontinen back in action in last major event as a junior (2.9.2008)

Links:
  US Open: Henri Kontinen, completed matches

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