2 Florida Players Named to USTA 2017 Boys’ National Junior Tennis Team

Blaise Bicknell

Miami 15-year-old Blaise Bicknell (coach: Melville Spence) and Boca Raton 16-year-old William Grant (coach: Juan Viloca) were among eight qualifiers named to the 2017 Team USA National Junior Team.

The training program is designed to give a collection of America’s best young players, born in 2001-02, opportunities to train together during the summer and travel to play against top junior competition from around the world. The U.S. girls’ team will be selected in May.

Also qualifying to the team were Andrew Dale (age 15, Leesburg, Va.; coach: Daryl Ahrens), Cannon Kingsley (15, Northport, N.Y.; coach: Alex Pop-Moldovan), Alex Lee (15, Oak Brook, Ill.; coach: Tom Lockhart), Govind Nanda (16, Cerritos, Calif.; coach: Vahe Assadourian), Marcus McDaniel (14, Vacaville, Calif.; coach: Phil Cello), and Siem Woldeab (15, La Mesa, Calif.; coach: Stan Jefferson).
 
Seven of the eight players qualified for the team through a playoff, held this past weekend at the USTA National Campus at Lake Nona in Orlando, Fla. Players were invited for the playoff based on tournament results and USTA national or ITF world ranking.
 
USTA Player Development will provide the National Junior Team with training opportunities and coaching and travel assistance to select USTA National Championships and ITF junior tournaments throughout the summer, beginning with a hard-court training camp at the USTA National Campus on June 11-15.
 
Bicknell is rated a five-star recruit in the Top 50 nationally of the Class of 2019 by TennisRecruiting.net. Grant is rated as TennisRecruiting.net’s No. 9 prospect nationally in the Class of 2019.

For additional info go to www.usta.com/news.