2024 Girls’ 16s Singles And Doubles Champion Bella Payne Returns In 18s At 2025 FILA Easter Bowl

The FILA Easter Bowl returns to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden for the 57^th edition of one of the nation’s largest and most prestigious junior tennis tournaments.

Nearly every American men’s and women’s Grand Slam champion since the first tournament began in 1968 has competed in the FILA Easter Bowl, a true pipeline to the professional ranks. Just glance over the recently completed BNP Paribas and ongoing Miami Open draws and you will find a number of past FILA Easter Bowl champions, such as Taylor Fritz, Jenson Brooksby, Frances Tiafoe, Marcos Giron, Brandon Nakashima, Alex Michelsen, Emma Navarro and Claire Liu, to name a few.

The FILA Easter Bowl is a USTA Level 1 Spring National Championship in the 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.

Today/Saturday, the boys’ and girls’ 12s and 14s kick off with the finals set for next Thursday. The 16 and 18s start on Tuesday with the finals taking place on Sunday.

Last year, San Marino’s Tianmei Wang won the Girls’ 18s title beating Daniela Borruel from Buena Park, 6-4, 6-0. It was the No. 2 seeded William Manning of Raleigh, N.C., beating unseeded Ronit Karki of East Brunswick, N.J., to win the Boys’ 18s while Bella Payne from Bradenton, Fla., won the singles and doubles gold ball in the Girls’ 16s.

This year, the University of Georgia-bound Payne will play in the 18s as she will be looking to pick up more Easter Bowl hardware. But the 17-year-old will have to get through a tough draw of players, which includes USTA Winter Nationals finalist Carrie-Anne Hoo (Brooklyn, N.Y.),

Thara Gowda (Rochester Hills, Mich.), JoAnna Kennedy (Englewood, Colo.), Chloe Qin (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) and Karlin Schock (Green Bay, Wisc.).

In the Boys’ 18s Shaan Patel of St. Louis, Mo., is coming off a win at the USTA Winter Nationals to start the year and will look for his second straight gold ball win with Nicholas Patrick  (Coal Valley, Ill.), who is headed to Notre Dame, Drew Fishback (Geneva, N.Y.), Nav Dayal (Granite Bay, Calif.) and Georgetown-bound Joshua Lamm-Bocharov, (Gibsonia, Pa.) standing in the way.

Other top seeds in the Girls’ 16s include: Ann Bugaienko (Frisco, Texas), Carlota Moreno (Knoxville, Tenn.), Kohana Darroch (Walnut Creek, Calif.), Sophia Budacsek (Wilmette, Ill.), Carolina Castro (Stevensville, Md.). Boys’ 16s: Safir Azam (Redmond, Wash.), Alexander Suhanitski (New Rochelle, N.Y.), Magnus Weng (San Jose, Calif.), Maddox Bose (Winter Haven, Fla.) and Joseph Nau (Brentwood, Calif.).

Girls’ 14s: Anna Scott Laney (Birmingham, Ala.), Allison Wang (San Jose, Calif.), London Evans (Manchester, Mo.), Daniela Del Mastro (Maple Grove, Minn.), Emery Combs (Conway, S.C.). Boys’ 14s: Gadin Arun (Paradise Valley, Ariz.), Rafael Pawar (Essex Fells, N.J.), , Aayush Vartak (Edison, N.J.), Dylan Meineke (Frisco, Texas), Zesen Wang (State College, Pa.).

Girls’ 12s: Lucy Dupere (Wake Forest, N.C.), Gabrielle Villegas (Great Neck, N.Y.), Violetta Mamina (Henderson, Nev.), Mila Mikoczi Spivey (Houston, Texas), Brielle Amey (Boca Raton, Fla.), Kareena Cross (Los Angeles). Boys’ 12s: James Borchard (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), Evan Fan (Mason, Ohio), Udham Singh (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Jason Ye (Redmond, Wash.), William McGugin (Nashville, Tenn.).