Top Seeds Continue To Roll

The top three seeds held true to form in the Boys’ and Girls’ 12-and-under division on Monday on Day 3 of the FILA Easter Bowl with the six players in the youngest division moving on to Tuesday’s quarterfinals at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

In the Boys’ 12s, top-seeded James Borchard (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), No. 2 Evan Fan (Mason, Ohio) and No. 3 Udham Singh (Sunnyvale, Calif.) all advanced. Singh had the toughest test of the day, winning 7-5 in the third set over Yifan Nie (Great Neck, N.Y.). Haris Shahbaz from Bowling Green, Ky., upset No. 4 Jason Ye (Redmond, Wash.), 6-2, 6-3. Shahbaz will play a fellow No. 9 seed Keita Iida (Round Rock, Texas) in the quarters on Tuesday.

In the Girls’ 12s, top-seeded Lucy Dupere (Wake Forest, N.C.), No. 2 Gabrielle Alexas Villegas (Great Neck, N.Y.) and No. 3 Violetta Mamina (Henderson, Nev.) each won with Villegas going the distance beating Valentina Singh Carvajal, 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

The No. 4 and 6 seeds were eliminated by a pair of unseeded players in Cataleya Brown of Murietta, Ga., and Skylar Mandell of Encino, Calif., who both won in straight sets. The two have a date Tuesday morning at 9:30 for a coveted spot in Wednesday’s semifinals. No. 5 Kareena Cross (Los Angeles) and No. 8 Inie Toli (Wellington, Fla.) were the other seeds advancing on to the final eight.

In the Boys’ 14s, while top-seeded Rafael Pawar from Essex Fells, N.J., was rolling to a 7-5, 6-3 win over Louden Muha, Blythewood, S.C., his in-state buddy No. 2 Aayush Vartak of Edison, N.J., didn’t fare as well as Vartak was shocked by unseeded Adrian Sharma of Porter Ranch, Calif., in three sets. In another big upset of the day, unseeded Carter Jauffret from Wilmington, Del., took out No. 4 Mason Menyhart from Glen View, Ill., 6-3, 7-5.

In the Girls’ 14s, the major question of the day would be if top-seeded Madeline Cleary from Moorpark, Calif., would finally drop her first game after four straight 6-0 wins put her into the Round of 16. But after Clearly lost the first set to against Emery Combs of Conway, S.C., 7-5, the question switched to whether or not Cleary could stay in the tournament, and it appeared so after a 6-1 second-set win. But Combs turned up the heat in the third and continued her strong play late in the match to pull out a 7-5 win to shock the No. 1 Cleary.

Combs will next face No. 9 Molly Widlansky of Parkland, Fla., who took out No. 8 Ania Zabost of Tarzana, Calif., 6-1, 6-3. No. 2 Olivia Lin of Lexington, Mass., and No. 3 Allison Wang from San Jose, Calif., both moved on.

Last year’s Easter Bowl 12s champion, 11-year-old and unseeded Nikol Davletshina, will face No. 9 Abigail Haile of Los Angeles after Haile took out No. 4 Anna Scott Laney from Birmingham, Ala., in straight sets.

While the finals for the 12s and 14s will take place on Thursday, the 18s and 16s will get underway on Tuesday with their finals slated for Sunday.

In the Boys’ 18s the top seeds are: Shaan Patel (St. Louis, Mo.), Drew Fishback (Geneva, N.Y.) and Joshua Lamm-Bocharov (Gibsonia, Pa.). In the Girls’ 18s the top seeds include: Thara Gowda (Rochester Hills, Mich.), JoAnna Kennedy (Englewood) and Carrie-Anne Hoo (Brooklyn, N.Y.).

In the Boys’ 16s the top seeds are: Safir Azam (Redmond, Wash.), Alex Suhanitski (New Rochelle, N.Y.), Magnus Weng (San Jose, Calif.). Girls’ 16s include: Ann Bugaienko (Frisco, Texas), Kohana Darroch (Walnut Creek, Calif.) and Carlota Moreno (Knoxville, Tenn.).

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.