Banana Bowl

Banana Bowl
Tournament information
Founded	1969
Location	Various (1969–2024), Gaspar – 18s (2025–present), São José do Rio Preto – U16 & U14 (2026) Brazil
Venue	Various, Bela Vista Country Club – 18s (2025–present), Monte Líbano Club – U16 & U14 (2026)
Category	ITF Junior Grade A
Surface	Clay court - outdoors
Draw	64S / 64Q / 32D
Website	bananabowl.com.br
Current champions (2026)
Singles	Dante Pagani - Boys 18s Nauhany L. da Silva - Girls 18s
Doubles	Marko Bekeni Leon Sloboda - Boys 18s Maia Ilinca Burcescu Alyssa James - Girls 18s

For the baseball championship known as the "Banana Bowl", see Banana Ball.

The Banana Bowl is a junior tennis tournament that is part of the ITF Junior Circuit and the South American Tennis Confederation (COSAT) series, established in 1969 in the city of São Paulo.

The tournament was previously classified as a Grade A event—the highest level in junior tennis—until 2007, and is currently held as a J500 (formerly Grade 1) event, the second-highest classification within the ITF. It features multiple age categories, including under-18, under-16, and under-14 divisions. Established in São Paulo, the tournament does not have a fixed venue and has been hosted in various Brazilian cities, including Ribeirão Preto, Santos, São José dos Campos, and São José do Rio Preto in the São Paulo state, as well as Blumenau, Florianópolis, Gaspar, and Itajaí in the Santa Catarina state.

Since its inaugural edition in 1969, the event has only been canceled once, in 1993, due to financial difficulties faced by the Brazilian Tennis Confederation.

History

The Banana Bowl was created in 1968, during the South American Championship congress in Caracas, Venezuela. The name "Banana" was suggested by Alcides Procópio, then president of the São Paulo Tennis Federation, who wanted to create a tropical version of the Orange Bowl. "Since we copy everything from the United States and they have the Orange Bowl, we will have the Banana Bowl," said Procópio in 1998, reminiscing about the creation of the event. The name was initially considered unusual, but the tournament gradually gained acceptance.

The first edition was held at the Esporte Clube Pinheiros in São Paulo, with players from Brazil and South America, with the first champions being Argentine Roberto Graetz and Brazilian Marlene Flues in the main category (under 18). Until 1973, only the Juvenile (under 18) and Infanto-Juvenile (under 15) categories were contested and only South Americans participated, but by 1976, the first Mexicans and Americans showed up. As the competition gained strength, several players who would later achieve success began to participate, such as John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Gabriela Sabatini, and Gustavo Kuerten.

The tournament has a list of champions who became major names in world tennis, such as John McEnroe, Thomas Muster, and Andy Roddick in the men's category, and Helena Sukova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, and Eugenie Bouchard in the women's category. But it also featured many players who didn’t make a significant impact at the time but later became stars, like Yannick Noah, Juan Martín del Potro, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Kei Nishikori, Fabio Fognini, Marcelo Melo, David Goffin, Amélie Mauresmo, Marion Bartoli, Ana Ivanovic, Dominika Cibulkova, Beatriz Haddad Maia and others.

Editions

In 2015, at the 45th edition, Orlando Luz became the first player to win back-to-back titles in the boys' singles category, defeating Igor Marcondes in the final. It was the second consecutive year that two Brazilian players contested the boys' final. In the girls' singles, American player Usue Maitane Arconada won the title, defeating her compatriot Francesca Di Lorenzo.

In the 16 & Under category, the champions were Juan Martin Jalif (Argentina) in the boys' division and Fernanda Labraña (Chile) in the girls' division. In the 14 & Under category, Mateus Alves (Brazil) won the boys' title, while Anfisa Danilchenko (Russia) claimed the girls' crown.

The 46th edition in 2016 took place once again in São José dos Campos, repeating the 2015 host city, but expanding to two venues: Associação Esportiva São José and Daher Tennis Lounge. The tournament ran from March 5 to 13, with the qualifying rounds held on March 5 and 6.

In 2018, Sebastián Báez from Argentina won the boys' singles title and Colombian Camila Osorio Serrano won the girls' title. Báez also won the doubles title, playing alongside French Clément Tabur. Canada's Leylah Fernandez earned the 16 & Under girls' singles trophy, defeating Clara Tauson from Denmark, 6–3, 7–6^(7–4). Georgia's Mariam Dalakishvili and Poland's Anna Hertel were runners-up in the 16 & Under girls' doubles – losing to Dane Clara Tauson and Russian Anastasia Tikhonova – but were crowned champions in the 18s doubles event.

The 2023 U‑18 event was held in Criciúma as a J500-level tournament, with Yaroslav Demin (Russia) winning the boys’ singles title after defeating Brazilian João Fonseca in the final. In the girls' singles, Mayu Crossley (Japan) were the champion with a victory over Italian Alessandra Teodosescu. Italian Federico Cinà and Japanese Rei Sakamoto secured the boys' doubles title.

In 2024, the U‑18 event was held in Blumenau again as a J500-level tournament, with the 16 year old Oliver Bonding (Great Britain) winning the boys’ singles title and becoming the first Brit to do so since 2010.

Past champions

Source:

Boys' singles, 18 and under

Year	Champion	Runner-up	Score
2017	Marko Miladinović	Thiago Seyboth Wild	6–3, 6–4
2018	Sebastián Báez	Tristan Boyer	6–4, 6–3
2019	Thiago Agustín Tirante	Martin Damm Jr.	5–7, 6–2, 6–2
2020	Li Hanwen	Natan Rodrigues	6–4, ret.
2021	Shang Juncheng	Miguel Gomes	6–2, 7–6(7–4)
2022	Nishesh Basavareddy	Bor Artnak	6–1, 6–4
2023	Yaroslav Demin	João Fonseca	6–2, 6–2
2024	Oliver Bonding	Naoya Honda	7–5, 6–4
2025	Andrés Santamarta Roig	João Pedro Didoni Bonini	6–4, 6–0
2026	Dante Pagani	Yannik Álvarez	3–6, 6–4, 6–3

Boys' doubles, 18 and under

Year	Champions	Runners-up	Score
2017	Gianni Ross Danny Thomas	Alexandre Rotsaert Sangeet Sridhar	4–6, 6–3, [10–6]
2018	Sebastián Báez Clément Tabur	Drew Baird Nicolás Mejía	6–4, 6–7(3–7), [10–7]
2019	Shunsuke Mitsui Keisuke Saitoh	Martin Damm Jr. Toby Kodat	6–4, 6–1
2020	Luciano Darderi Gustavo Heide	Dali Blanch Lorenzo Claverie	6–2, 6–3
2021	Alexander Bernard Dali Blanch	Jack Anthrop Aidan Kim	6–2, 6–4
2022	Aidan Kim Cooper Williams	Daniel Vallejo Martín A. Vergara Del Puerto	6–3, 6–0
2023	Federico Cinà Rei Sakamoto	Yaroslav Demin Daniil Sarksian	6–2, 6–4
2024	Miguel Tobón Maximo Zeitune	Timofei Derepasko Justin Engel	walkover
2025	Ronit Karki Jack Satterfield	Yannick Theodor Alexandrescou Ryo Tabata	6–4, 0–6, [10–4]
2026	Marko Bekeni Leon Sloboda	Emilio Camacho Jack Secord	6–0, 6–7(5–7), [10–8]

Girls' singles, 18 and under

Year	Champion	Runner-up	Score
2017	Whitney Osuigwe	Emily Appleton	7–5, 6–4
2018	Camila Osorio	Alexa Noel	6–3, 6–4
2019	Ane Mintegi del Olmo	Natsumi Kawaguchi	6–2, 4–6, 6–2
2020	Elvina Kalieva	Leyre Romero Gormaz	6–1, 1–6, 6–3
2021	Océane Babel	Bianca Behúlová	7–6(7–3), 6–4
2022	Lucie Havlíčková	Annabelle Xu	6–2, 6–2
2023	Mayu Crossley	Alessandra Teodosescu	6–2, 7–6(7–4)
2024	Kaitlyn Rolls	Mayu Crossley	7–6(7–3), 6–2
2025	Thea Frodin	Sol Ailin Larraya Guidi	6–3, 6–1
2026	Nauhany Leme da Silva	Victoria Luiza Barros	6–3, 4–6, 6–3

Girls' doubles, 18 and under

Year	Champions	Runners-up	Score
2017	Elysia Bolton Vanessa Ong	Hailey Baptiste Whitney Osuigwe	4–6, 6–4, [10–5]
2018	Mariam Dalakishvili Anna Hertel	Elizabeth Mandlik Alexa Noel	6–3, 5–7, [10–7]
2019	Natsumi Kawaguchi Shavit Kimchi	Saki Imamura Jeong Bo-young	6–1, 4–6, [11–9]
2020	Ana Geller Guillermina Grant	Mell Reasco González Solana Sierra	6–4, 6–4
2021	Kira Pavlova Diana Shnaider	Océane Babel Solana Sierra	7–6(7–5), 6–2
2022	Irina Balus Nikola Daubnerová	Weronika Ewald Vivian Yang	6–1, 6–3
2023	Francesca Gandolfi Greta Greco Lucchina	Lourdes Ayala Luna Cinalli	6–4, 5–7, [10–6]
2024	Olivia Carneiro Jeline Vandromme	Kaitlyn Rolls Emily Sartz-Lunde	7–6(7–3), 6–7(4–7), [10–8]
2025	Victoria Luiza Barros Yoana Konstantinova	Maya Iyengar Annika Penickova	6–3, 7–5
2026	Maia Ilinca Burcescu Alyssa James	Sol Ailin Larraya Guidi Nauhany Leme da Silva	6–4, 6–0