Boys Seeding Near Perfect, Girls Draw Wide Open for Friday's Quarterfinals at the FILA International Championships; Keys Reaches Semifinals at BNP Paribas Open

©Colette Lewis 2025--

Indian Wells CA--

The weather forecast for Thursday in the Coachella Valley was a dire one, but no one at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden was complaining when the predicted rain failed to materialize. Although temperatures were 20 degrees below normal and the wind, particularly in the afternoon, made it feel much colder, the ITF J300 FILA International Championships are on schedule, with the singles and doubles quarterfinals set for Friday.

The boys draw has proceeded as predicted, with the only top eight seed failing to make the quarterfinals No. 8 Jack Secord, who lost to No. 10 seed Ronit Karki 7-6(10), 6-2.  Karki will play top seed Jagger Leach, who defeated No. 15 seed Matisse Farzam 6-4, 7-6(5).

No. 2 seed Jack Kennedy, the 2024 finalist, ended the run of wild card Donald Nikolas Stoot 6-3, 6-3 and will face No. 5 seed Ryan Cozad, who beat unseeded Jacob Olar 7-6(5), 6-4.  No. 7 seed Jack Satterfield, who downed No. 12 seed Calvin Baierl 7-6(8), 6-1, will play No. 3 seed Keaton Hance, who edged unseeded Sebastian Eie of Norway 6-3, 7-6(5).  The two quarterfinalists who had the toughest third round victories, No. 6 seed Maximus Dussault and No. 4 seed Noah Johnston, will face off in the fourth quarterfinal. Dussault came back to defeat fellow left-hander Aaron Gabet of France 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, while Johnston won the final five games of the match against fellow left-hander Gavin Goode, the No. 13 seed, to earn a 6-4, 6-7(2), 6-3 victory that spanned three hours and 17 minutes.

While the all-USA boys quarterfinals were expected, the girls draw has only three seeds left: No. 5 seed Julieta Pareja, No. 13 seed Nancy Lee and No. 14 seed Alyssa James of Jamaica. 

Pareja and Lee will play Friday after each picked up routine wins today, with Lee defeating unseeded Maria Aytoyan 6-2, 6-4 and Pareja beating unseeded Ireland O'Brien 6-3, 6-0.

James, who is in the opposite half, defeated Karlin Schock 6-4, 6-0 and will face qualifier Alexis Nguyen, who beat Shannon Lam 6-2, 6-2. 

Wild card Maggie Sohns took out one of the pre-tournament favorites in No. 3 seed Thea Frodin, the recent Banana Bowl J500 champion, with the 15-year-old from upstate New York crediting the coach from her mom for getting her through some of the day's worst conditions to post a 6-3, 6-2 victory.

"I think it was tricky for both of us," Sohns said. "Obviously the conditions were pretty difficult, but if it wasn't for my mom, I don't think I would have been able to make it through the match, because I was getting really frustrated with the wind. She helped me a lot, with the coaching throughout the match. She knows a lot about tennis and I really appreciate her help."

Sohns also has had the support of a young local fan who connected with her at last year's tournament.

"Last year she actually watched me play in the doubles quarterfinals, and I guess they've been following me every since," said Sohns, who didn't return to the hotel after her first round doubles loss Wednesday night until 11:30 p.m. "I really appreciate the support, I don't get a lot of it, and I feel like that's really cool."

Sohns is happy with her win, but is trying not to look beyond her next opponent, unseeded Adla Lopez, who beat Chukwumelije Clarke 7-5, 6-2.

"I've played her twice, actually," said Sohns, who lost to Lopez in 2022 and beat her in the first round of J300 in Houston last October. "I'm expecting her to come out really strong, and hopefully I can play my best."

Lopez, who, like Sohns, will be playing in her first J300 quarterfinal, was not expecting a run like she is enjoying this week.

"Honestly, I just wanted to play good and do what my coaches were saying," said Lopez, who trains at Axis Tennis in Delray Beach Florida. "Working on my serve and not focusing on the results, but focusing on my patterns. I'm surprised but obviously very happy it's coming together."

Lopez, the younger sister of Qavia Lopez, who is currently injured and unable to compete for the University of Florida, figured out early how she wanted to play against Clarke. "In the beginning, I knew her backhand angle was really good, so whenever I hit to her backhand, I tried to make it a little bit higher, to try to make it harder to get that angle," said the 16-year-old left-hander. "That I noticed in the beginning. And she hit a really hard ball, so I tried to mix up the pace and mix up the height on the ball and it really worked."

The winners of the day's only three-set girls matches, qualifier Tianmei Wang and Kristina Liutova of Russia, will meet in the quarterfinals Friday.

It's the second straight quarterfinal at the FILA Internationals for the 15-year-old Liutova and she was overjoyed with her 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over No. 4 seed Maya Iyengar.

"After I was in the quarterfinals last year, I was inspired to return this year," said Liutova, who has played just one W15 and this tournament so far this year. "Plus the opponent was very tough, she took me with her aggression, but I kept believing, kept responsibility for myself and got the win."

Although the match was exactly three hours in duration, Liutova said she didn't feel any fatigue.

"Honestly, this is one of the first times, when it's such a long match, such a tough match, that I didn't feel tired," Luitova said. "I just felt happy to be on court, and I wanted to keep going and of course, the win is everything for me. I gave it all out there."

With the wind swirling and gusting, frustration would have been the more expected mental state, but Liutova took it in stride.

"In the second set, or maybe it was third, I don't remember, but there was like a 20-mile-per-hour wind pushing the ball, it was landing before the service box," Liutova said. "But the most important thing was just to keep the ball in the court."

Wang is the marathon girl of the tournament, having beaten No. 6 seed Leena Friedman in four hours and 21 minutes Wednesday night, then winning her doubles match, which ended after 10 p.m.

Thursday, she defeated No. 10 seed Ava Rodriguez 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, in a relatively quick two hours and 42 minutes, but again was playing late into the night Thursday in doubles. Wang and partner Addison Yang Comiskey defeated No. 4 seed Ishika Ashar and France's Dune Vaissaud 6-4, 5-7, 10-4 in a match that finished at 9:20 p.m.

The seeds in doubles finally began play Thursday, and in addition to Ashar and Vaissaud, two other top four teams were eliminated. No. 1 seeds Iyengar and Pareja lost to Aytoyan and Sabrina Lin 6-3, 6-7(1), 10-4 and Clarke and O'Brien defeated No. 3 seeds James and Capucine Jauffret 6-3, 7-6(5).

As in the singles, the boys doubles went as expected, with the top eight seeds reaching Friday's quarterfinals.

Play begins on Friday at 11 a.m. PDT, with a continuation of the unseasonably cold temperatures, no rain is expected and winds should diminish.

The only American left in contention for a BNP Paribas Open singles title is No. 5 seed Madison Keys, who reached the semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over wild card Belinda Bencic of Switzerland. Keys will play top seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in Friday's semifinal in a rematch of the Australian Open final. Sabalenka defeated No. 24 seed Luidmila Samsonova of Russia 6-2, 6-3 in the quarterfinals. 

Ben Shelton(Florida)[11] lost to Jack Draper[13] of Great Britain 6-4, 7-5 in the men's quarterfinals.