From 27-2 to 3-3 the Yonex Dutch Junior 2013 will be held in Haarlem. As usual there is a quality field of juniors entered. This year Thailand will also be present, along with Malaysia, Hong Kong and a few players from Indonesia. Interesting to see how the top European juniors compare to their Asian counterparts. you can find all tournament information at http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=034833EB-89CB-4726-857C-04BFF3C46BFF
Unfortunately, most of the INA top juniors are not being sent to these 2 tourneys this year as some of them are already being recruited to Pelatnas. Instead, we shall see a few competing in Vietnam IC.
However, MAS does send their top juniors: Soong Joo Ven, Soo Teck Zhi, Ho Yen Mei, Kisona S., Darren Isaac Devadaas/Ong Yew Sin, etc.
Soong Joo Ven failed to win the title, despite being seeded first. The Thais dominate the singles with Sitthikom Thammasin and Pannawit Thongnuam facing each other in the Final. 3 titles also for Thailand: in BS, GS, and GD (Narissapat Lam and her partner)
BS Round 3: Soong Joo Ven [MAS;1995][1] vs Tanguy Citron [FRA;1996] [video=youtube_share;EvIpMUbdPvE]http://youtu.be/EvIpMUbdPvE[/video]
this year's German Junior was much less impressive. There were no big smashers or eye-catching highly skillful players. From the European side, I assume Denmark hadn't sent all their best players? The boy disciplines were dominated by Koreans. Soong Joo Ven of Malaysia was still my favourite, although he lost in the semifinal. He lost in the semifinal as well two years ago when he was a much smaller boy (I still remember the sympathetic faces of the ladies among the crowd). Even at the junior level, one can see the Asians put much more work on the footwork of their players. Some of their boys' legs are really strong. The European teenagers' legs are in contrast fairly slim.