At the end of this week, players from no less than 30 countries will visit the Royal Tennis Hall for this year’s Kungens Kanna & Drottningens Pris.
It is a luxury to play a Category 1 tournament on the Tennis Europe Junior Tour. We do not see that many Swedes at the top ranked event, but thanks to KLTK and the Swedish Tennis Federation’s initiative, we can now compete with the great tennis nations. In the upcoming U14 event there will be about 35 Swedes participating, half of those players are directly qualified for the main draw and the remainder will qualify.
With the advantage of playing on home turf, we have high hopes for all of the top Swedish players who will compete this year. On paper, our number one, Ross Weibull from Lund who is training on the Good to Great Tennis Academy here in Stockholm is the one to look out for. He appears to be in great shape and was undefeated in the Tennis Europe Winter Cups by Head last week.
On the girls side we should keep an extra eye on Maria Petrovic (picture above) from Farsta TK, who is ranked near top 50 on the Tennis Europe rankings but looking to improve on that. Also, our 13-year old Emma Shasteen. She grew up in Lerum, but is now settled in nicely at the newly established Academy of KLTK, here at the Royal Tennis Hall. Another girl to keep an eye on is IS Götas Louise Wiklander.
Finland’s hope, is seeded Ella Haavisto, and from Norway we welcome Emilie Elde. Another Scandinavian player in good shape is Denmark’s number one, Clara Tausen, who has the potential to go far this year.
Looking at the past years we know that the level of this event is too tough for many of our Swedish hopes, however having this reference of European top level tennis at home is a very valuable piece to the puzzle that will contribute to the future of Swedish tennis.
– We hope that players and clubs in our country can see the value of what we do here at KLTK, comments Rickard Billing from the Tournament Committee. We see this key event as an important part of once again developing Sweden to a leading tennis nation.