By Colette Lewis, USTA Florida junior tennis writer
Left-hander Alexander Bernard from Naples had an outstanding week in the Boys 12s division at the Junior Orange Bowl, going 7-1 on the Har-Tru courts at Salvadore Park in Coral Gables to win the consolation draw and finish in fifth place.
Bernard, who lost to No. 8 seed and finalist Jewon Jeon of Korea in the quarterfinals of the main draw, was unseeded in the tournament, which featured 128 of the top 12-year-old boys from around the world.
In the final of the feed-in consolation, Bernard defeated No. 3 seed Hamad Medjedovic of Serbia 6-4, 7-6(7). Bernard went up 5-2 in the second set, but Medjedovic came back to force the tense tiebreaker.
“I was being aggressive to his backhand, but then I started to make a couple of mistakes,” said Bernard, who has trained with Rene Gomez at the Gomez Tennis Academy in Naples for the past four years.
“He moved up in the court and I moved back. But in the tiebreaker, I hit some good shots to win.”
Bernard, who earned a bronze ball at the USTA Boys Clay Court Nationals this summer, is the top-rated boy in the nation in the Tennis Recruitng Network’s class of 2022.
