NORTH Vancouver tennis phenom Filip Peliwo swung for the fences last week and just missed a Grand Slam, finishing second in junior men's singles at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Peliwo's incredible run actually began the week before the Open when he bested six opponents to win the Traralgon International, a tune-up event that featured most of the players who would go on to play in the Open.
Peliwo then went on to win five more matches to make it all the way to the Australian Open junior final, finally losing 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 to Australia's Luke Saville, the No. 1-ranked junior player in the world.
"Obviously I was disappointed not winning both tournaments but it was a good run and I'm proud of myself for doing it," Peliwo told the North Shore News Monday on the phone from Montreal after a couple of long travel days. "Honestly, I thought it would be a lot worse if I lost. Before the match I was thinking . . . a little bit about how bad it would feel to lose the match after getting so far, and obviously it did feel bad but I got over it and realized that it was a good accomplishment either way."
Saville was also Peliwo's opponent in the Traralgon final. In that match, however, it was Peliwo that prevailed in the third set to take a 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 win. It was the biggest championship win of his career, said Peliwo.
"I'd never beaten a guy ranked No. 1 in the world in juniors - I'd never even played one," he said with a laugh. "It definitely gave me a lot of confidence, especially because all of the guys that were playing in the Australian Open were there. It was good preparation and I think that it carried over to Melbourne."
At the Australian Open Peliwo ripped off five straight victories to extend his winning streak to 11. They weren't easy wins, however, with his first and third round matches going the full three sets. Peliwo said he wasn't playing the most incredible tennis of his life, he was just keeping a good attitude and fighting for every point.
"I was playing pretty well the whole way through, consistently," he said. "I wasn't doing anything really extraordinary, just playing my game and finding ways to use my strengths and my opponents' weaknesses pretty well. The biggest thing was a great attitude and fighting all the time. At big moments I was really playing well - I was down a couple of times against a few good guys and managed to pull it out."
A 6-4, 6-4 win over American Mackenzie McDonald in the semifinals put Peliwo into the final to be played Saturday afternoon on Rod Laver Court, the Open's biggest stage.
"I was trying not to feel too nervous, just think of it as another match," Peliwo said about the moments leading up to the final. "Obviously it's a different stage but I was trying to take it the same way I'd been preparing for the previous matches."
Nerves got to him in the first set as he lost the first three games to put himself in a hole that he couldn't climb out of. In the second set he battled back, jumping out to a 3-0 lead of his own and then claiming the set 7-5 with a break of Saville's serve. In the third, Peliwo lost his first service game and could not get the break back.
"I played a couple of loose points and he hit a few big shots to win the game and that was enough," said Peliwo. "I gave him a little bit of an opening and he took it. He served well the whole way through that third set and didn't really give me any chances to break him back. I wasn't playing quite as well as I'd like to there and I didn't really manage to get any of those chances."
Peliwo was attempting to become the first Canadian male to win a junior Grand Slam event. Fellow North Vancouverite Philip Bester and Ontario's Peter Polansky both made Grand Slam finals and scored runner-up finishes in 2006. Though he didn't win the big one, Peliwo said there were still a lot of positives to take away from his Australian adventure.
"It was a good two weeks," he said. "I didn't really go out and play anything extraordinary, I didn't blow everyone off the court. I just played smart and worked my way through the matches. . . . There were a couple of matches where I wasn't playing that well and I won. It feels good to know that even if I'm not playing my absolute best tennis I can still go out and do well."
The two-week run bumped Peliwo, who just turned 18 on Monday, from No. 21 in the junior world rankings all the way up to No. 5. He'll now stay in Montreal for a couple of weeks where he trains at the National Tennis Centre before heading out for some pro Futures and Challenger events against senior players. Peliwo played a few pro events last year and he hopes to make more of a breakthrough this season. But moving from junior to pro is a big step up, he said.
"It's a huge difference because all of those guys play well. You have to play really big tennis to take them out. There's just a difference with the speed and everything - guys are going to be hitting harder and you've got to be ready for it. It's a great feeling to be up there - when you beat those guys you feel like you belong up there."
He's hoping that his season will include a stop at the Hollyburn Country Club-hosted Van Open in August. He was supposed to play in the qualifiers last year but suffered an injury two weeks before and was forced to withdraw.
While pro players are in his sights, Peliwo still has until the end of 2012 to play as a junior and he's hoping to get another crack at a Grand Slam final at the French Open, Wimbledon or US Open.
"I'm just going to try to work hard and keep improving, work on a few things that I thought I could do better," he said. "Hopefully I'll get another chance to get into a Grand Slam final this year and pull it out."
