Love was in the air at Curro Hillcrest in Durban as the International Tennis Federation (ITF) J300 tournament final served up a smashing spectacle this weekend. The world’s top under 18 players showcased their skills in this Gold Standard competition, hosted by Curro for the second consecutive year. In a fiercely contested battle, the top-seeded female duo of Mika Buchnik from Israel and Gloriana Nahum Benin fought for glory. After nearly four hours of play, Buchnik narrowly aced the first set 7-6 but Nahum roared back, volleying to victory with a 6-2 win in the second set and 6-3 in the third.

Egor Pleshivtsev

Mika Buchnik and Emily Sartz Lunde

In the boys singles final, Egor Pleshivtsev from Russia took the lead in the first set, but Gur Trakhtenberg from Israel rallied back to level the score at 3-3 in the second. However, Egor’s powerful serves and groundstrokes proved too much, sealing the victory 2-6, 3-6. The tension was palpable in the doubles finals which concluded the week-long event in dramatic tennis fashion. Denzel Seetso from Botswana and Trakhtenberg from Israel teamed up to deliver a spectacular performance, triumphing over Yuvan Nandal from India and Tianhui Zhang from China in a thrilling 3-6, 7-6 (2) 10-5.  Meanwhile, Nahum, along with her partner Maya Iyengar from the USA received a walk over victory against Buchnik and Emily Sartz Lunde from Norway.

Tianhu Zhang and Yuvan Nandal