Brandon Burke

Having only just missed out on securing a place in the main draw of the junior US Open, Jamaica's top juvenile, Brandon Burke, hopes to play in the Juniors category of the Grand Slam tournaments next year.

"It was a great experience (Junior US Open). My immediate goal is to play all the junior Grand Slams next year and hopefully get my ranking to around 50 by then," Burke told The Gleaner.

Getting into the prestigious Flushing Meadows junior tournament as an alternate, Burke raised a few eyebrows with a 7-6, 3-6, 6-1 victory over 12th-seeded Kaza Vihayat Sharma of India.

Burke was, however, knocked out of the tournament in the final round of qualifying by Christian Lindell of Sweden. Lindell went on to upset 10th-seeded Facundo Arguello of Argentina in the first round of the main draw and followed that up yesterday with a second-round victory over Suk-Young Jeong (Korea).

"I won't say it was disappointing," Burke said of his failure to qualify. "I wasn't expecting to get into it and once in as an alternate I managed to pull off a pretty big upset, so I was happy for that.

"It's a whole different level of competition, the guys are on a whole different level, but it was a good experience because now I know where I need to get to."

Excellent performances

The 16-year-old, who began the year at 300 in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) junior rankings, has now surged to 133rd following a summer of excellent performances, which included the historic achievement of winning the ITF Jamaica Junior Tournament in July.

"I think winning that tournament really helped him in terms of his confidence and he has really been able to push forward with that," said the player's coach and father, Douglas Burke.

"Now he has got a taste of what it takes and knows he needs to take it up a notch, but he has made some solid strides over the last four or five months," he added.

Up next for Brandon will be a tournament in Kentucky, US, before taking a break from the gruelling and long junior tournament schedule in late November. It is hoped that by January, the player's current ranking would have once again improved, allowing him to gain entry to the junior Australian Open.

Burke earlier teamed up with Darian King of Barbados to win the doubles title at the US Junior International Hardcourt Championship in New Jersey two weeks ago.