Unlike the Fed Cup and Davis Cup, the junior versions are held in one place--Barcelona--and the same week every year--the last week of September. These competitions are for age 16-and-under players; the World Junior Tennis Championships held in August in the Czech Republic are the 14-and-unders version.
The U.S. teams came in very highly regarded, which is somewhat surprising given the surface is clay, with both girls and boys teams seeded second. France, the defending champions in Jr. Davis Cup, is the top seed; for the girls, Russia, with U.S. Open Junior Girls Champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova leading them, is no. 1.
The U.S. boys' team, consisting of Jarmere Jenkins, Austin Krajicek and Bradley Klahn, has already lost to both Japan and Brazil (competition started Tuesday), so they have no chance of advancing to the semifinals.
The girls--Madison Brengle, Chelsey Gullickson and Kristy Frilling, are 2-0 however, having beaten Japan and Spain. On Thursday, they face no. 7 seed Belarus, also 2-0, with the winner advancing to the semifinals. Belarus features Ksenia Milevskaya, the world's third ranked junior girl, who didn't lose a game to Japan's no. 1 player today. Milevskaya, winner of the Grade 1 in Canada before the U.S. Open juniors and the Grade 1 in Kentucky afterward, has beaten Gullickson, the U.S. no. 1, both times they've played. The U.S. team is deeper, which is why the seedings make Belarus the underdog.
Eleanor Preston is covering the competitions for the ITF. Her story on Wednesday's competition is available at the ifttennis.com/juniors website.