Petits As

Les Petits As (English: Small champions) is a premier junior tennis tournament for players aged 12–14. It is held in Tarbes, France. It is often considered to be the European equivalent of the Junior Orange Bowl in Florida, United States due to the high number of international players that it attracts.

The event has seen a number of its champions go on to become slam winners, including Rafael Nadal, Michael Chang, Martina Hingis, and Kim Clijsters. Due to the relatively restrictive age range, few players have won the title more than once, although Hingis and Timea Bacsinszky have both done so. Most recently, upcoming Spanish player Carlos Boluda became the first boy to do so.

The tournament is played on indoor Green Set (hard) courts. Roughly 7,000 players enter the pre-qualifying tournaments held across France, with that number being narrowed down to 350 for the final qualifying stage, and 64 for the final tournament.^[1] The event is regulated by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and has businesses such as Head, Eurosport, Coca-Cola, and Peugeot amongst its portfolio of partners.^[2]

Results

Boys' singles

Year	Champion	Runner-up	Score
1983	Jean-Baptiste Bolle	Jean-Manuel Naves
1984	Frédéric Fontang	Marek Miskolci[3]
1985	Richard Krajicek	Philippe Leblanc
1986	Michael Chang	Johan Alvenn
1987	Reinhard Wawra	David Klein
1988	Brian Dunn	Julian Knowle
1989	Tommy Shimada	Gonzalo Corrales
1990	Maxime Boye	Magnus Norman
1991	Răzvan Sabău	Juan Antonio Saiz
1992	Olivier Mutis	Björn Rehnquist
1993	Miha Gregorc	Dymitry Caradima
1994	Juan Carlos Ferrero	Fernando González
1995	Olivier Rochus	Gasper Martinjak
1996	Paul-Henri Mathieu	Todor Enev
1997	Julien Maigret	Carlos Cuadrado
1998	Matthew Smith	Mario Ančić
1999	Richard Gasquet	Brian Baker
2000	Rafael Nadal	Julien Gely
2001	Alexandre Krasnoroutski	Andy Murray
2002	Dylan Arnould	Robin Roshardt
2003	Donald Young	Leo Rosenberg
2004	Andrew Thomas	Vladimir Ignatic
2005	Chase Buchanan	Lazare Kukhalashvili	6–4, 4–6, 6–4[4]
2006	Carlos Boluda	Sebastian Lavie	7–6, 6–3
2007	Carlos Boluda	Christian Harrison	6–2, 6–2
2008	Edward Nguyen	Liam Broady	6–4, 7–5
2009	Nikola Milojević	Borna Coric	6–2, 6–3
2010	Quentin Halys	Noah Rubin	6–1, 6–2
2011	Henrik Wiersholm	Bogdan Borza	6–2, 5–7, 6–3
2012	Francis Tiafoe	William Blumberg	6–0, 6–2
2013	Samuele Ramazzotti	Miomir Kecmanovic	7–6(10–8), 0–6, 6–0

Girls' singles

Year	Champion	Runner-up	Score	Semifinalists
1983	Sybille Niox-Château	Cécile Bourdaix
1984	Emmanuelle Derly	Alexia Dechaume
1985	Sandrine Jacquet	Hanika Narbe
1986	Laxima Poruri	Gruben
1987	Kimberly Kessaris	Ursula Priller
1988	Anke Huber	Katherine Denn Samuel
1989	Nicole London	Zedna Malková
1990	Heike Rusch	Lindsay Davenport
1991	Martina Hingis	Dally Randriantefy
1992	Martina Hingis	Rita Kuti-Kis
1993	Stephanie Hallsell	Rika Vidats
1994	Anna Kournikova	Stephanie Kovacik
1995	Mirjana Lučić	Justine Henin
1996	Jelena Pandžić	Melissa Middleton
1997	Kim Clijsters	Elena Bovina
1998	Lina Krasnoroutskaya	Caroline Raba
1999	Bethanie Mattek	Mateas Mezac
2000	Dinara Safina	Lina Stančiūtė
2001	Vojislava Lukić	Jarmila Gajdošová
2002	Timea Bacsinszky	Alisa Kleybanova
2003	Timea Bacsinszky	Ioana Raluca Olaru
2004	Yelena Kulikova	Tamira Paszek
2005	Ksenia Pervak	Gracia Radovanovic
2006	Gabriela Dabrowski	Anna Arina Marenko	6–3, 6–4[5]
2007	Anna Orlik	Nicole Gibbs	6–4, 6–1
2008	Daria Gavrilova	Laura Robson	6–3, 6–3
2009	Yulia Putintseva	Irina Khromacheva	6–4, 6–2
2010	Tsuji Kanami	Indy De Vroome	4–6, 6–3, 6–4
2011	Jeļena Ostapenko	Françoise Abanda	1-6, 6-3, 6-3
2012	Jaqueline Adina Cristian	Tornado Alicia Black	6-2, 6-3	Gabriella Patricia Taylor Maia Lumsden

Exhibitions

The tournament often features retired and/or active players making appearances in exhibition matches in the evening preceding the final day of play. It is common for upcoming and veteran French players to be present. In recent tournaments, players present have included:

• 2004: Yannick Noah and Henri Leconte.
• 2005: Juan Carlos Ferrero (a former champion) and David Nalbandian, who replaced compatriot and French Open champion Gastón Gaudio at the last minute.
• 2006: Rafael Nadal and Fabrice Santoro.
• 2007: Richard Gasquet and Gaël Monfils.
• 2008: Fabrice Santoro and Marc Gicquel, after Paul-Henri Mathieu and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew. Mathieu, who had injured himself at the 2008 Australian Open, signed autographs instead.

Notable later meeting of Les Petites As competitors

In the 2011 Australian Open, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic met in the final. They had first played each other in Les Petits As in 2000 as 13-year-olds (born a week apart in May, 1987). Murray remembered winning the Petits As match "6-love, 6–1 maybe." Djokovic (3 seed in Australia 2011^[6]), who had already eliminated Roger Federer (2 seed^[6]) would "be just a bit tougher than that on Sunday," averred Murray. Murray (5 seed) had just beaten David Ferrer (7 seed) in the semis at Melbourne Park. Ferrer earlier in the 2011 tournament had beaten Rafael Nadal, who was the overall winner of the 2000 Petits As^[7] and the top seed in the 2011 Open.^[8] In the event, in Australia 2011, Djokovic beat Murray in a hard-fought but convincing straight sets win, following the match with "a warm embrace at the net as if to say to his longtime friend and rival, until next time", as one commentator put it.^[9]

References

External links

• Les Petits As website (French) (English)
• 2008 Boys' Singles draw
• 2008 Girls' Singles draw