Top Seeds in FILA Easter Bowl 14s Fall in Semifinals; Match Tiebreakers Decide 12s Finalists; Brantmeier, Ikemori Advance to ITF JB1 Round of 16

©Colette Lewis 2022--
Indian Wells, CA--

The two remaining No. 1 seeds in the FILA Easter Bowl 12s and 14s division, both in 14s, exited in the semifinals today at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

Girls top seed Capucine Jauffret lost to unseeded Nicole Okhtenberg 7-5, 6-3 on Court 2, the tournament's stadium court, while Noah Johnston, a No. 9 seed, made quick work of top seed Ronit Karki on Court 1, 6-0, 6-2, avenging his recent loss to Karki at December's Junior Orange Bowl in Miami.

While Johnston needed barely an hour to advance to Thursday's championship match, his opponent in the final, No. 3 seed Evan Sharygin had a much longer and more dramatic semifinal with No. 5 seed Nathaniel Suh, winning it 2-6, 6-2, 6-5 ret. Suh served for the match at 5-3 in the third set, but at 15-all he went wide to his right and cramped after failing to reach Sharygin's shot. Suh made his way to the shaded benches and his father came on court to attend to him for a medical timeout, but when returning to the court, he was unable to move as before and he was broken. He received more assistance from his father on the changeover, and had two match points with Sharygin serving at 4-5, 15-40, but two errors by Suh bailed Sharygin out and he held for 5-all.

Suh's ability to move deteriorated in the final game, and he was unable to get even underhanded serves in play, and he was broken at 6-5. Sharygin, who had not hit lobs or drop shots during the previous three games did hit one to open his service game, and when Suh went up for it, his thigh immediately cramped and he fell to the ground. The chair umpire called game, set and match, and Suh's father again came to the court to try assist his son in getting off the court.

Sharygin had a doubles semifinal to play after that three-hour plus singles match, this time coming out on the wrong end of another long three-setter.

In the girls 14s final, Okhtenberg will play Avery Nguyen, who defeated fellow No. 9 seed Amy Lee 6-4, 6-4.

Three of the four semifinals in the 12s division were decided by match tiebreakers, the only age group that uses that format in lieu of a third set.

Unseeded Baotong Xu defeated No. 3 seed Anjani Vickneswaran 6-4, 1-6, 10-7 to earn her place in the final, where she will meet Yilin Chen, also unseeded. Chen defeated No. 5 seed Lyla Middleton 6-3, 2-6, 10-6.

The boys 12s semifinal that got the most attention today was between No. 2 seed Vihaan Reddy and No. 3 seed Teodor Davidov. Davidov, who doesn't hit a backhand, switching the racquet from his left to his right hand, came back from 0-40 down at 4-all in the second set, then broke Reddy to force a match tiebreaker, after dropping the first set 6-3. Davidov went up 5-2 in the tiebreaker, but then lost four straight points. The tension mounted as it was 6-6, then 8-8. Reddy, who rarely showed any emotion earned a match point when Davidov netted his reply to Reddy's return.

The match point was a classic, extending to 37 shots, with Reddy eventually cracking a backhand winner to earn his spot in the final. 

Reddy will play Michael Antonius, a No. 5 seed, with Antonius beating unseeded Shaan Majeed 6-0, 6-1. Majeed had ousted top seed Jordan Lee in the quarterfinals Tuesday.

The girls 12s and boys 14s singles finals are scheduled for 11:00 a.m., with the boys 12s and girls 14s finals to follow. Streaming for all four finals will be available via easterbowl.com. Archived matches from this week are also available there.

The second round of the ITF Grade B1 action delivered several upsets, with Jelani Sarr defeating No. 6 seed Aidan Kim 6-3, 6-2, Rohan Murali beating No. 16 seed Kaylan Bigun 7-6(5), 6-3, and Roy Horovitz downing No. 12 seed Kurt Miller 6-1, 6-2.

In girls second round play, last year's Easter Bowl 16s champion Theodora Rabman defeated No. 7 seed Ahmani Guichard 6-4, 6-4, Isabella Chhiv eliminated No. 10 seed Kaitlin Quevedo 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 and Mika Ikemori defeated No. 12 seed Yichen Zhao of China 6-1, 6-4.

Ikemori is playing in her first ITF tournament at any level, receiving entry based on her USTA ranking, and reaching the round of 16 was not what she was expecting.

"I'm trying not to stay real excited," said the 16-year-old from Huntington Beach California. "I'm trying to keep calm and stay focused. My boyfriend was like, you're not excited enough, but I said, no, I'm just breathing. I'm going to be zen."

Ikemori was pleased with the way she managed the match against Zhao, who she had never seen play.

"It's kind of nice when you get to go out there and figure it out all on your own," said Ikemori, who has verbally committed to UC-Davis for 2023. "I figured out that I needed to keep the balls deep and keep her moving; I was losing some of my points when I tried to go for too much, too early. So I played the points out and waited for the right ball to attack. And I stayed calm, which is important."

Unlike Ikemori, No. 3 seed Reese Brantmeier is a veteran of many ITF junior events, although she has been concentrating on building her WTA ranking, now 515, since last year's US Open Junior Championships. With no USTA Pro Circuit women's tournaments this week, Brantmeier decided to add the Easter Bowl to her schedule, with an eye toward competing again as a favorite, not an underdog.

"One of the big reasons I wanted to play this tournament was to get a lot of competition in," said the 17-year-old from Wisconsin, who defeated Amber Yin 6-2, 6-2 in today's second round. "That's what I'm focused on. Regardless of how I'm playing, focusing on competing, taking care of what I can control that's not necessarily execution. Switching from being so results oriented, to committing to competing."

Brantmeier, who recently signed with North Carolina for this fall, played the qualifying in at the BNP Paribas Open earlier this month, losing to Anna Kalinskaya of Russia 6-4, 6-1. 

"It obviously feels a bit different and looks a bit different," said Brantmeier, who also played qualifying in last fall's BNP Paribas Open, winning a round. "It's an amazing tournament and they really do it up. It even looks like a different venue. They go all out for that tournament, so it does have a bit of a different feel. In October I actually got Stadium 2, and this time I was on Stadium 4. I love playing in front of crowds."

The 16s quarterfinals will move to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden Thursday, without top girls seed Stephanie Yakoff included. Yakoff lost to unseeded Claire Zhang 6-4, 1-6, 6-4, leaving only three seeded players still vying for the girls title.

Top seed Andrew Ena has advanced to the quarterfinals, but No. 2 seed Lucas Coriaty lost to Zhengqing Ji, a No. 9 seed, 6-1, 6-0.

Draws for the 12s, 14s, and 16s, including doubles and consolation, can be found at the USTA Playtennis site.