Team USA’s Hollis Robertson pulled off the biggest result of the 2023 World Junior Individual Championships thus far stunning defending junior men’s world champion Rowan Damming, as Robertson and U.S. teammate Caroline Fouts celebrate their maiden appearance in the World Juniors quarterfinals Thursday, July 20, in Melbourne Australia.
Team USA entered the round of sixteen with a record six players still alive in the main draw–five of which were seeded to reach the last sixteen.
Robertson faced the most daunting draw in the form of Damming the tournament’s two seed Damming. After a five-game third round win to reach the last sixteen, Robertson once again produced five-game heroics, coming back from 2-0 down against the Dutchman to win 7-11, 5-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-7 in sixty-six minutes.
Robertson thanked his U.S. teammates and coaches who pushed him on throughout the match afterwards.
“I kind of lost myself for a second and let it all out,” Robertson said. “Knowing I had the team’s support, they’ve supported me two matches in a row and really pushed me through and I just wanted to share that moment with them.”
Robertson will face a fellow 9/16 seed in the quarterfinals–France’s Melvill Scianimanico who upset Swiss 5/8 seed David Bernet at 12:30pm local time, 10:30pm ET Thursday night.
Team USA will have two quarterfinalists for the first time since Andrew Douglas and Marina Stefanoni in 2017 as Fouts–a 5/8 seed–joined Robertson with a 3-1 win over South Africa’s 9/16 seed Savannah Ingledew.
Fouts will face a difficult quarterfinal opponent in Egypt’s two seed Fayrouz Abouelkhir on the glass court at 4:15pm local time, 2:15am ET.
After strong performances to reach their maiden rounds of sixteen, Varun Chitturi, Rishi Srivastava, Madison Ho and Riya Navani all exited the main draw against higher seeds and will continue their tournaments in consolation play.
Find streaming times, draws and more information below: