ITF’s Top-Seeded Boys’ Quinn, Basavareddy and Godsick Advance

Boys’ ITF top-seeded player Ethan Quinn is very aware of the history and the list of past champions from the FILA Easter Bowl over the past few years.

Ranked No. 20 in the ITF junior world rankings, Quinn of Fresno, Calif., opened up play at the 54^th annual event taking place at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden beating Dylan Tsoi of El Dorado Hills, Calif., 6-2, 6-2, on Monday.

It was Quinn’s first-ever visit to the Tennis Garden, which just two weeks ago hosted the ATP Masters 1000 BNP Paribas Open won by former FILA Easter Bowl champion Taylor Fritz.

“I played in the 16s and lost in the Round of 16, but it was a country club and not here,” said Quinn, a University of Georgia redshirt freshman. “Just seeing the mountains and all the courts all the greats have played on is pretty cool.”

Quinn said he was “a little bit” aware of the Easter Bowl past champions currently in the ATP world Top 55 rankings, including the likes of Fritz (currently No. 13 in the world; 2015 Easter Bowl champion), Frances Tiafoe (No. 31^;2014), Tommy Paul (No. 37; 2014 doubles), Jenson Brooksby (No. 39, 2018), Marcos Giron (No. 52; 2011) and Mackie McDonald (No. 54; 2012), not to mention former Easter Bowl players Reilly Opelka (No. 18) and John Isner (No. 22) and Sebastian Korda (No. 38).

“My coaches this week have me kind of locked in and thinking match by match and not worrying about who’s won it before because there’s a lot of strong competition,” Quinn said. “It’s pretty crazy seeing that and being on the same level as those guys once were.”

Two weeks ago, Quinn advanced to the semifinals of USTA Pro Circuit $25,000 pro event in Bakersfield. He said it’s tough jumping from the pro level, to college to the juniors. “It’s definitely hard mentally,” said Quinn, who lost in a third-set tiebreaker to eventual champion Rinky Hijikata in Bakersfield and in the semifinals in last week’s San Diego ITF J1 event. “Playing the pro events you know there aren’t gonna be as many loose points so you kind of have to lock in point in and point out. Obviously the balls are a lot quicker than the junior level.”

Like Quinn, the No. 2-seeded Nishesh Basavareddy of Carmel, Ind., also had an easy first-round win dropping just three games. A high school senior, Basavareddy is headed to Stanford University in the fall.

The No. 3-seeded Nicholas Godsick of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, didn’t have as easy of a time advancing to the second round as he survived a three-hour, five-minute comeback win over Jayanth Devaiah of Chestnut Hills, Mass., 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in a 35-mph wind storm that swept through the valley later in the day and ultimately caused nine matches to be resumed on Tuesday.

The Girls’ and Boys’ 16s singles events started on Monday. Top-seeded Stephanie Yakoff of Fort Lee, N.J., didn’t drop a game in defeating Lauren Zhang of Darien, Conn. There were two big upsets in the first round as unseeded Tianmei Wang of San Marino beat No. 5-seeded Saray Yli Piipari of Braselton, Ga., and Emily Baek of Suwanee, Ga., downed No. 2-seeded Eva Oxford of Dallas, Texas, 6-3, 1-6, 6-1.

In the Boys’ 16s singles, top-seeded Andrew Ena of Rego Park, N.Y., rolled to a first-round win dropping just three games. Other seeded players moving on included: No.  Lucas Coriaty of Long Beach, Calif., No. 3 Cyrus Mahjoob of Rockville, Md., No. 4 Chase Fralick of Peachtree City, Ga., and No. 5 Stephan Gershfeld of Long Island, N.Y.

In the Boys’ 14s singles, top-seeded Ronit Karki of East Brunswick, N.J., advanced to the quarterfinals and will next face Keaton Hance of Torrance, Calif. No. 3 Evan Sharygin of Newburgh, Ind., and No. 5 Nathaniel Suh of Orange, Calif.

In the Boys’ 12s singles, top-seeded Jordan Lee from Orlando, Fla., moved onto the quarterfinals, as did seeded players Izyan Ahmad from Wayne, N.J., Michael Antonius of Buffalo, N.Y., Andrew Johnson of Rancho Palos Verdes, Teodor Davidov of Bradenton, Fla., and Vihann Reedy of San Jose, Calif.

In the Girls’ 14s singles, top-seeded Capucine Jauffret of Wilmington, Del., will face No. 5 Kenna Erickson of Katy, Texas, in the quarterfinals at Indian Wells Tennis Garden starting at 11:30 a.m. Nicole Okhtenberg, Boca Raton, Fla., is the only player unseeded to make it through to the quarters.

In the Girls’ 12 singles Julia Seversen of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., upset top-seeded Lani Chang, 6-4, 6-0. The No. 2 Filipa Delgado from Boca Raton, Fla., and Anjani Vickneswaran of Surprise, Ariz., both advanced on to Tuesday’s quarterfinals. All 12s quarterfinal matches will take place at Palm Valley Country Club in Palm Desert.

Be sure to catch all the action on the live stream, in addition to live broadcast which can be found here.