American junior to train in France The tussle between the world’s leading tennis academies to secure top flight prodigious talent grows ever more intense as France’s Mouratoglou Academy is boasting a coup by signing 13-year-old American Sachia Vickery, the youngster Richard Williams declared is 'The next Venus or Serena on the way.' Still a month short of her 14th birthday, the youngster from Hollywood, Florida is already ranked within the world’s top 100 juniors by the International Tennis Federation. Vickery appeared to be settled in her home state after being awarded a scholarship to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy at IMG Academies in Bradenton but has now opted to join the constantly growing impressive young band of juniors based at the Mouratoglou Academy just outside of Paris. It is the current home of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Grigor Dimitrov who are making inroads on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tours and ATP World Tours respectively. Amongst the new recruits at the Mouratoglou Academy Vickery joins 15 year-old Russian Daria Gavrilova, who last year won the prestigious Les Petits As de Tarbes tournament in France beating current world junior no.1 and Wimbledon champion Laura Robson. “They are two young tennis players with incredible potential and an already-impressive honors list between them,” said Laura Bilman of The Mouratoglou Tennis Academy. “They'll become members of the "Rising Players" group that includes top junior players from all around the world. “The Mouratoglou Tennis Academy accompanies these young International talents in their quest to become elite players into the highest level of tennis.” Vickery won her first ITF junior tournament at the age of 13, beating girls nearly five years her senior. She has subsequently added both the Easter Bowl and Gator Bowl titles and earned high praise from Bollettieri. “She is not going to be very big but she is very strong physically," he said. "She is unbelievable in her movement. She covers the court like a leopard. She is relentless and very, very competitive." Founded in 1996 by Patrick Mouratoglou, the academy offers personalized tailor-made preparation to each of its players. It soon proved itself on the international tennis scene with a first group of world-famous players such as Mario Ancic, Marcos Baghdatis, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Gilles Muller, Ivo Karlovic and Pauline Parmentier.