INDIAN WELLS, March 25 (by Steve Pratt)
The boys’ and girls’ 18s and 16s kicked off play, while the 14s and 12s semifinals were set on another blistering hot day in the desert at the 58th Annual Easter Bowl Presented by adidas.
Temperatures climbed into the high 90s once again and matches that split sets were decided by super 10-point tiebreakers in lieu of a third set at the Level 1 USTA National Junior Spring Championships taking place all week at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
Last year’s girls’ 16s singles Easter Bowl champion Armira Kockinis of La Habra Heights is playing for a fourth consecutive week and continued her Easter Bowl winning streak by opening with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Emi Dowdell of Salt Lake City.
“I just tried to end the points as quick as I could and to get off the court,” said Kockinis, who reached the semifinals of the J200 in Las Vegas, played the J300 in Tucson before falling in the second round and also played last week’s ITF J300 North American Championships in San Diego.
The top two seeded players in the girls’ 18s advanced by identical 6-2, 6-2 scores – top-seeded Ellery Mendell from Watkinsville, Ga., who will play for Ohio State, and Calla McGill from Alexandria, Va., who is headed to play at the University of Virginia.
In the boys’ 18s, all the top 5 seeds held as No. 1 Alexander Suhanitski from New Rochelle, N.Y., and No. 2 Omar Rhazali from Stamford, Conn., both advanced. The No. 6 and 7 seeds were eliminated as unseeded Carson Dwyer (Cincinnati) beat No. 6 Soren Swenson and No. 7 Noble Renfrow from Florida lost to Reddy Harsha Karakla from Fremont, Calif.
In the Boys’ 16s, top seeds Eli Kaminski (Fairfax Station, Va.) and Lennart Hammargren (Bradenton, Fla.) both advanced, with Kaminski surviving a match point against Dallas’ Tristan Ascenzo, 6-3, 4-6, 11-9, in his singles first-round win.
“I was a little bit nervous at the start,” Kaminski said. “I had played him in the semifinals of Winternationals a year ago and he’s gotten a lot more aggressive since then. He’s so smart and really moved me around a lot. I saw the draw and I tried to play it off like, ‘Yeah, I’m happy’. But I was not happy.”
In the Girls’ 16s, Sylvana Jalbert (Mount Airy, Md.) and Vanessa Kruse (St. Augustine, Fla.) both opened strong dropping just one and two games, respectively, in their opening matches.
In the Boys’ 14s, quarterfinal winners included: Ishaan Marla (1) from Mason, Ohio, Nathan Lee (3) from Tustin, Calif., Sunnyvale’s Pranav Vignesh (9) and his next opponent Michael Chervenkov (2) from Canton Ga.
In the Girls’ 14s, top-seed Nadia Poznick (Ann Arbor, Mich.) will face unseeded Nicle Alexandrovich from Litchfield Park, Ariz., who upset No. 4 seed Eleanor Armistead form Leesburg, Va. In the other semifinal it will be unseeded Isabelle Nguyen from San Gabriel, Calif., against No. 9 Violetta Mamina from Henderson, Nev.
In the Girls’ 12s, top seeds Chloe Anthony (Lakeville, Mass.) gutted out a tough, 6-1, 7-6 (9), win in straight sets against Alara Buyukuncu from Irvine for a spot in the semifinals. Anthony is coached by her mother Elena Volobueva Anthony at the Weymouth Club in Lakeville, Mass. Elena is originally from Russia and played at East Tennessee State.
Anthony will next face Valentina Singh Carvajal of Morristown, N.J., who won her first set 7-5, lost the second 6-0, before rebounding to score a 10-6 super tiebreaker win against Lucy Jiang of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. In the other semi, it will be an all-SoCal matchup with Glendale’s No. 4 Lindy Zhou taking on No. 9 Cordelia Skye of West Hollywood.
In the Boys’ 12s, No. 1 seeded Dmitriy Flyman from Hallandale Beach, Fla., will play No. 3 Thomas Gamble of Newport in one semifinal and in the other it will be a battle between No. 9 seeds as Jesse Goldman (Paradise Valley, Ariz.) takes on Milan Nair (Alpharetta, Ga.), who both won straight set matches against SoCal players Benedict Zhong (Irvine) and Jaden Joyner (Tarzana), respectively.
One of the nation’s largest and most prestigious junior tennis tournaments, the Easter Bowl includes 18s, 16s, 14s and 12s for both boys and girls with gold, silver and bronze balls handed out for top finishers in all eight singles and doubles divisions.
Easter Bowl matches will once again be live-streamed on www.EasterBowl.com
