A total of 96 players from 36 countries are registered for the qualifying rounds of the U-18 tournament being organised by the International Tennis Federation, in conjunction with the Malta Tennis Federation, at Marsa SC.
The qualifying round started yesterday and comes to a close today. Twelve players will make it to tomorrow's Main Draw from the qualifying stage.
The locals in the qualifying round are Matthew Booker, Chris Abdelghani, Malcolm Ferrante, Julian Sammut, Stefan Malaguti, Brenda Galea and Klara Sitarova.
The Main Draw will see other Maltese players involved, namely, Matthew Asciak, Omar Sudzuka, Clayton Zammit, Elaine Genovese, Kimberley Cassar and Alexia Valenzia.
Asciak and Cassar earned their place in the main draw thanks to their ITF junior ranking of 564 and 718 respectively.
Justin Eleveld, of Holland, and Veronika Domagala, of Poland, are the top seeds of the tournament.
Eleveld is no.260 and Domagala no.218 in the ITF list.