WAIPAHU — Hawai'i has found its niche in the Where's Waldo world of international junior tennis with this week's Hawai'i International Tennis Federation Junior Tournament. The event ends today with finals beginning at 10 a.m. at the Patsy T. Mink Central O'ahu Regional Park Tennis Complex.

The week has been packed with players you might see on tour in a few years, riveting matches at a level rarely seen in Hawai'i and a few other aspects of the game few ever wanted to see: Screaming children who are playing; screaming parents, who are not; and an official interpretation of racquet abuse — one strike you are warned, two strikes you lose a point and three strikes you are out a game.

"Warning is good for me," said Harry Fowler, 16, the top-seeded boy from Houston. "USTA goes straight to a point, which I don't like. With a warning I can get away with one thing."

Fowler, who has a scholarship to IMG's Nick Bollettieri's Academy in Florida, would know. Like John McEnroe before him, he is the rare breed who can find inspiration in his anger. He used it to his advantage in beating 11th-seeded Emmett Egger, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, in one semifinal.

Fowler earned the decisive break in the decisive set despite losing the first point of the fifth game when he was slapped with his second racquet abuse call, after slapping his racquet on the ground, loudly ... after he nearly decapitated it earlier ... after he hit himself in the face with it.

Meanwhile, he managed his first ITF semifinal victory and, with his No. 104 ITF ranking on the rise, probably earned a coveted slot in the French Open Junior qualifying, despite Egger's entertaining and advanced serve-and-volley game. The No. 11 seed from Seattle came into the match after straight-set upsets over the Nos. 4 and 8 seeds.

Ranked No. 1 nationally in the 12's and 14's, Egger — now 15 — is easing his way into the ITF Junior Circuit. The game's highest level for 18-under players, it features 338 tournaments in 114 countries this year.

Only 17 events are in the U.S., and this is Hawai'i's first. The local section received confirmation late, so it didn't get a full 64-player draw for either field (46 boys and 29 girls), but it had entries from 10 countries outside the U.S. and room for 25 from Hawai'i.

Six won their first-round matches, including new ILH champion Matt Westmoreland, who finished second in the state high school championship last year as a freshman, and BIIF champ Fernando Aguirregomezcorta, a St. Joseph sophomore and exchange student from Spain. Both lost three-set second-round matches to seeded players.

Sixth-seeded Australian Robert Howe reached today's final against Fowler with a 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 6-1 victory over seventh-seeded Mico Santiago of Oregon in the other semifinal.

Brynn Boren, 16, from Southern California, ousted the girls' top seed, Noel Scott, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Wednesday Boren, the seventh seed, upset the fourth seed in three sets. "The other one was more physically exhausting," Boren said. "This one was mentally exhausting."

Boren, 17, meets second-seeded Ester Goldfeld, 14, in the girls final. Goldfeld, who had only lost one game before yesterday, defeated eighth-seeded Juliana Gajic, 6-4, 6-4.