Five junior tennis players from Mobile and Baldwin counties have earned places on Team Alabama’s 24-player roster for the Ozaki Cup.
The local contingent includes Daphne’s Vera Pantovic, Gulf Shores’ Tereza Mojs, and Mobile’s Danner Graf, Gael Habibollahi and Emma Peterson.
Where Each Will Compete
- Vera Pantovic (Daphne) — girls’ 12 and under. Pantovic is making her third appearance on the Alabama team.
- Danner Graf (Mobile) — boys’ 12 and under.
- Gael Habibollahi (Mobile) — boys’ 14 and under.
- Emma Peterson (Mobile) — girls’ 14 and under.
- Tereza Mojs (Gulf Shores) — girls’ 18 and under.
Pantovic’s third selection is the standout item on that list. For a player in the 12-and-under division, three appearances means she was selected at an age when most players are still working toward a first.
The Coaching Staff
Team Alabama has four coaches: head coach Kristijan Mitrovski and assistant coaches Pardis Kianoush, Eddie Jacques and Jay Weinacker.
The Format
The tournament features three pools of three teams each in early round play.
Pink Group: Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky
Green Group: North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana
Orange Group: Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee
Alabama’s Schedule
- vs. Kentucky: Thursday at 6 p.m. and Friday at noon
- vs. South Carolina: Thursday at 7 p.m. and Friday at 4 p.m.
South Carolina and Kentucky meet Thursday at 5 p.m. and Friday at 8 a.m.
The Week’s Structure
Early round matches are scheduled Thursday and Friday, with matches leading to the championship rounds set for Saturday and Sunday.
- Thursday: first-, second- and third-round doubles play
- Friday: first-, second- and third-round singles play
- Saturday: championship rounds in singles
- Sunday: championship rounds in doubles
Why a Team Event Matters in an Individual Sport
Junior tennis is, structurally, an individual pursuit. Players compete for their own rankings, travel to tournaments with their own coaches or families, and accumulate results that belong to them alone.
A team competition changes the incentive entirely. A player is competing for a result that includes teammates in other age divisions whose matches she may not even watch, and her own outcome contributes to a total she does not control.
Coaches and player development programs consistently identify team events as formative for exactly that reason. They introduce collective accountability into a sport that otherwise provides almost none of it, and they produce the experience of sitting courtside supporting someone else’s match — which is where many junior players first learn to read a match from the outside.
Doubles First, Singles Second
The scheduling order is notable: doubles on Thursday, singles on Friday.
Junior players typically get less doubles coaching than singles, and doubles rewards a distinct skill set — net play, serve placement, communication and court positioning relative to a partner. Opening a team event with doubles puts those skills at the front of the competition rather than treating them as a supplement.
Closing the week with doubles championships on Sunday gives the format symmetry: it begins and ends with the paired format.
The Regional Field
The nine states represented — Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas and Tennessee — make up the Southern section of American junior tennis, historically one of the strongest development regions in the country.
Climate is a substantial part of why. Year-round outdoor play in the South means juniors accumulate court time that players in colder regions can only get indoors, at cost. The result is a deep regional talent pool and a long record of Southern juniors moving into college and professional tennis.
Tennis on the Alabama Coast
Five players from Mobile and Baldwin counties on a 24-player state roster is a strong showing for the coastal region — roughly one in five of the team, from two counties.
The area supports junior tennis through a combination of municipal facilities, private clubs and school programs, and recent public investment in courts across both counties has added capacity. Age-group representation from 12-and-under through 18-and-under also suggests a pipeline rather than a single strong cohort.
Following the Results
Alabama opens against Kentucky on Thursday evening and plays South Carolina an hour later, with the return meetings Friday. Advancement to the weekend championship rounds depends on the pool results.