Local junior tennis star wins his first top tournament in Groenkloof
The 15-year-old Lleyton Cronje from Pretoria last week surprised by winning his first international junior tennis tournament against strong competition.
Last week’s Junior ITF tournament, played at Groenkloof Tennis Stadium in Pretoria was a dream tournament for 15 year old Pretoria junior Lleyton Cronjé, when he captured his maiden international junior title on Saturday.
Cronjé, seeded 16, upset compatriot and top seed Joshua Howard-Tripp 6-0, 6-3 in an hour and 22 minutes to lift the ITF Groenkloof Junior crown.
Top seed South African, Howard-Tripp, seemed irritated on court from the start of the final and was unable to get onto the scoreboard in the first six games of the match. Trailing Cronjé 0-4 in the opening set, and at 0-30 in the fifth game, Howard-Tripp was given a code violation for ball abuse for hitting a ball outside the court, which resulted in a warning.
In the sixth game Howard-Tripp was given his second code violation again for ball abuse by Attridgeville chair umpire George Mogofe. This resulted in the top seed being given a point penalty.
Cronjé impressively remained calm on court despite all the drama and held serve to win the opening set 6-0.
Howard-Tripp somehow managed to regroup himself and started to play the game that had got him to the final. He won the opening game of the second set and the match went with serve until the seventh game when Cronjé broke to lead 4-3. Cronjé held serve to lead 5-3 when the real drama unfolded.
A unforced error by Howard-Tripp gave Cronjé match point in the ninth game of the second set after which Howard-Tripp once again hit all ball out the court into the stadium parking lot which resulted in Tournament Supervisor, George Phiri, issuing Howard-Tripp with yet another code violation which resulted in a game penalty giving Cronjé the game, set, match and title.
A disillusioned Howard-Tripp could hardly believe that his antics had cost him an international junior title and after the chair umpire announced Cronjé as winner he slammed his racket against the court breaking it in pieces. It was a rather sad end to what was a brilliantly organised tournament that displayed some top class tennis throughout.
Cronjé said that he had entered the tournament with confidence having prepared real hard.
“I was striking the ball real well from the first round. Beating second seed Richard Thongoana in the third round and ninth seed Lance-Pierre du Toit in the semi’s proved that my game was on point. In the final I felt I didn’t play as well as I had all week but all I had to do against Joshua was keep the ball in court and make him play, which worked.”
In the girls singles, fifth seeded Minette van Vreden continued her impressive winning match streak when she upset top seed Maxine Bateman 6-0, 6-1 in the all South African one-sided final.
Van Vreden made it a double title win in Pretoria when she partnered with good friend Mila Hartig from Menlopark Hoërskool to win the girls doubles. Van Vreden and Hartig, seeded two, beat top seed Maxine Bateman and Margo Landman (RSA) 7-6, 3-6 in the final.
The boy’s doubles all South African final was won by tournament favourites Sipho Montsi and Richard Thongoana. They beat unseeded George Botha and Philip Henning 6-2, 6-2 in the final.
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