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2011 French Open: Pittsburgh Native Bjorn Fratangelo Wins Juniors Championship

While most eyes on Sunday were on Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the tennis French Open (Nadal won, by the way), a Pittsburgh native was busy winning the juniors title.

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17-year old Bjorn Fratangelo is a native of Plum, though he recently moved to Florida. Fratangelo won in three sets over Austria's Dominic Thiem. With the win, he became the first American to win the championship since John McEnroe in 1977. Afterwards, Fratangelo said the match was one of the best he's ever played:

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"I think the whole match I played really well, and so did he," Fratangelo told reporters. He called the third set "probably the best set we both played, both holding serve until the end."

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His father, Mario, also serves as his coach and he was named after ... you guessed it - tennis great Bjorn Borg. He says it's a good thing that he became a tennis player:

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He also has a pretty good sense of humor. Asked about his parents’ decision to name him Bjorn, Fratangelo drew laughter from reporters when he said: "You know, thank God I didn’t end up hating the sport. Let’s put it that way. Or else I would have had to live with that name."

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Photographs by dizfunk used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.