FILA Easter Bowl Boys 14 Top Seed Pawar Takes Charge To Advance in Three Sets, 2024 12s Champion Davletshina Returns Seeking 14s Title; Monday Claims Bakersfield $25K Title; Challenger Title for Nava, Osuigwe Wins W50; Eala Shocks Keys at Miami Open

©Colette Lewis 2025--

Indian Wells CA--

Upsets have been few at the FILA Easter Bowl, with the top four seeds in the 12s and 14s divisions advancing to Monday's round of 16 matches at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden (Boys 14s No. 3 seed Gadin Arun withdrew). But Rafael Pawar, the No. 1 seed in the boys 14s draw, needed three sets to advance over wild card Johan Lee Sunday afternoon when the temperatures had topped out in the mid-90s.

Pawar, who hadn't dropped a game in the first round, found himself down a set when Lee took the tiebreaker 8-6. But the eighth grader from New Jersey made the adjustments he needed and cruised through the final two sets 6-1, 6-0.

"I definitely started attacking more," said Pawar, who is moving to Florida to train next month. "I was hitting a lot of shots off my back foot. He was getting a lot of balls back and doing a really good job of pushing me back. I tried to attack on a lot of balls but he was hitting with a lot of depth and spin countering my game in the first set, but I changed the way I was playing."

Pawar is making his Easter Bowl debut this year, and has never been the No. 1 seed at a USTA Level 1 tournament until this week. 

"It feels great," Pawar said of his position at the top of the draw. "There's definitely some nerves, but I try to push through them and get the dub."

Pawar cited a couple of reasons for not making the trip to Indian Wells in the youngest age division.                                      

"In the 12s, I don't think my ranking was high enough to get in," Pawar said, agreeing that he had improved a lot in the last two years. "Also, I live on the East Coast, so it's a far tournament, across the country."

Pawar will face unseeded Louden Muha in Monday's round of 16.

While Pawar is competing in his first Easter Bowl, 11-year-old Nikol Davletshina is already playing in her third, winning the 12s title last year as a 10-year-old. 

Davletshina added the IMG Academy and Junior Orange Bowl 12s titles to her resume last December, but turned her focus to the 18s division the past two months, winning two Level 5s in Florida, with that jump in divisions part of the reason she isn't seeded this week.

"I was a little bit surprised not be seeded, but not really," said the left-hander from Lake Worth. "I only played 14s a little bit. But some of the seeds, I was very surprised by them."

Davletshina is attempting to complete the back-to-back championships that Raya Kotseva, last week's ITF J300 San Diego finalist, won in the 12s and 14s in 2023 and 2024, although Davletshina is more than a year younger. 

"I'll try to do that, but there's some tough matches, and next match I play a tough opponent," Davletshina said. 

That will be Soo-Ah Byun, who advanced to the third round when Teaghan Jou An Keys retired at 2-6, 7-5.

Top seed Madeline Cleary has yet to lose a game, blanking her first two opponents, but she will be tested Monday, when she faces No. 9 seed Emery Combs. Combs, who reached the Les Petits As semifinals in January, is returning to competition this week after suffering an injury in that semifinal. Although she needed comebacks in each of her wins this weekend, beating Karissa Chang 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 today, Combs will be a formidable test for Cleary.

In the 12s, boys top seed James Borchard defeated Sushant Pothula 6-2, 6-4 to set up a third round match with Jungmin Lee and girls top seed Lucy Dupere beat Summer Yang 6-2, 6-2 to earn a meeting with No. 9 seed Daniella Yogumyan.

The 16s and 18s don't begin until Tuesday, but the draws are now up at the USTA tournament site, with the seeds listed below.

Boys 16s:

1. Safir Azam

2. Alexander Suhanitski

3. Mangus Weng

4. Maddoz Bose

5. Lixing Jiang

6. Joseph Nau

7. Mason Vaughn

8. Tristan Stratton

9. Gurjot Singh

9. Keshav Muthuvel

9. Marcel Latak

9. Rowan Qalbani

9. Sebastian Inaki Godoy

9. Ilias Bouzoubaa

9. Ryan Bedwick

9. Jesse Yang

Girls 16s:

1. Anna Bugaienko

2. Kohana Darroch

3. Carlota Moreno

4. Aarini Bhattacharya

5. Natalie Kha

6. Sophia Budacsek

7. Carolina Castro

8. Anjani Vickneswaran

9. Lyla Messler

9. Kara Garcia

9. Kalista Papadopoulos

9. Whitney Burke

9. Julia Seversen

9. Kavya Kongara

9. Sasha Miroshnichenko

9. Armira Kockinis

Boys 18s:

1. Shaan Patel

2. Drew Fishback

3. Joshua Lamm-Bocharov

4. Nav Dayal

5. Blake Anderson

6. Nicholas Patrick

7. Andre Alcantara

8. Francisco Salmain

9. Nolan Balthazor

9. James Quattro

9. Arnav Bhandari

9. David Wu

9. Winston Wooin Lee

9. Prathinav Chunduru

9. Elliot Wasserman

9. Nathan Germino

Girls 18s:

1. Thara Gowda

2. JoAnna Kennedy

3. Carrie-Anne Hoo

4. Catherine Rennard

5. Chloe Qin

6. Karlin Schock

7. Blair Gill

8. Ashley Kurizaki

9. Nadia Valdez

9. Calla McGill

9. Nicole Weng

9. Emily Deming

9. Reagan Levine

9. Addison Lanton

9. Yilin Chen

The USTA Pro Circuit's $25,000 tournament in Bakersfield California concluded today with Great Britain's Johannus Monday, the former University of Tennessee All-American winning his second $25K title of the year and the sixth since he completed his eligibility last May. The 23-year-old left-hander, seeded No. 1,  defeated No. 6 seed Alex Rybakov(TCU) 6-2, 6-4 in today's final. He is inching closer to Roland Garros qualifying, with his ATP live ranking at a career-high 253.

The doubles title also went to the top seeds, with former Georgia Tech teammates Andres Martin and Keshav Chopra defeating unseeded Ryan Dickerson(Duke, Baylor) and Ty Gentry(Oregon) 1-6, 6-1, 10-6 in the final.

Emilio Nava won his third Challenger title today at the 75 in Paraguay. The unseeded 23-year-old beat four seeds, taking out top seed Thiago Monteiro of Brazil in the final 7-5, 6-3, with his ATP live ranking moving to 204 with the title.

Whitney Osuigwe won her first women's ITF World Tennis Tour title in her third final of the year at the W50 in the Dominican Republic. The 22-year-old from Florida, seeded No. 4, defeated unseeded Ana Sofia Sanchez of Mexico 6-2, 7-5 in the final. Like Nava, Osuigwe is moving back up the rankings and now at 185, will be competing in the Roland Garros qualifying. 

With all the junior tennis I've been covering, I'm falling behind on the Miami Open, but there were several notable results today.

Wild card Alexandra Eala of the Philippines, the 2022 US Open girls champion, followed up her win over Jelena Ostapenko in the first round with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Australian Open champion Madison Keys[5] today. Eala, who turns 20 in May, will play No. 10 seed Paula Badosa next.

One of the players Eala beat in her run to the US Open girls championship was Mirra Andreeva of Russia, who saw her Masters 1000 winning streak snapped today by Amanda Anisimova. Anisimova, the No. 17 seed, defeated No. 11 seed Andreeva 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-3. Anisimova and Jessica Pegula[4] are the Americans remaining in the bottom half of the women's draw, while defending champion Danielle Collins[14], Ashlyn Krueger and Coco Gauff[3] are alive in the top half. 

The top half of the men's draw plays their third round matches Monday, but there are two Americans through to the round of 16 in the bottom half: Sebastian Korda[24] and Brandon Nakashima[31].