Payne Claims Back-to-Back Titles, Stoot Wins First Gold Ball in FILA Easter Bowl 18s; Latak Joins Sister on Easter Bowl Champions List; Kockinis Rides Serve to 16s Title
©Colette Lewis 2025--
Indian Wells CA--
For Bella Payne everything felt familiar, for Nikolas Stoot the experience was a new one, but the two unseeded 17-year-old left-handers from Florida each came away with FILA Easter Bowl titles Sunday afternoon as a week of heat, dust and wind came at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden to a close.
Payne, the 2024 16s champion, has not lost a set in her 12 victories at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, but the routine wins she was posting en route all week came to end in the first few games of her championship match with No. 9 seed Nadia Valdez.
But trailing 4-1, the desert magic kicked in for Payne.
"I think she came out playing really good tennis and there was not much I could do," said Payne, who was playing her fifth consecutive week, with the first week of that stretch ending with a three-set loss to Valdez in a UTR Pro Tennis Tour event in Atlanta. "I was just staying in the match, trying not to give her any free balls because she definitely wasn't giving me any. Whenever I would win a point, I would have to hit a winner, and it was tough, but I just kept going until I finally got some errors from her."
Down 0-30 serving at 5-all, Payne won the next four points and broke, as Valdez began to struggle with her game.
At 3-all in the second set, Payne lost track of the score and thought she had been broken, and that mistake proved the boost she needed, taking the final three games.
"I thought it was 15-40 and it was 30-all," said Payne, who has verbally committed to Georgia for 2026. "I lost that point and I was walking and she called 30-40, and I said ok. Winning that next point and getting that game was really what gave me the momentum to win the match."
Valdez was going up against a confident player who had known nothing but success at the Easter Bowl the past two years, and playing in her first USTA Level 1 final, her inexperience showed.
"I played horrible," said the 15-year-old from San Antonio, who took some time to collect herself before posing for the post-match photographs. "I was going for the right shots but I just wasn't executing it, it just wasn't going in. I didn't think I would get this far, so I'm proud of myself either way. It's ok, I've just got to move on."
Payne picked up three wins this week after losses to those opponents during this extending road trip, a turnaround she attributed to her attitude.
"It feels really good to avenge all those matches," said Payne, who joins Emma Navarro as a champion in both 16s and 18s. "I was just really mentally there here I think. After Winter Nats in January I took a mental break because my emotions were all over the place and was super frustrated with my tennis. Then starting with Atlanta I played a bunch of tournaments in a row and they weren't going great, so I was thinking of not playing this, but I'm really glad I got this result."
Stoot was also considering skipping the Easter Bowl, after returning to his home in Miami from the Indian Wells ITF J300, where he won two rounds as a wild card. With a shoulder injury casting doubt on his effectiveness, he took a chance, and with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Tyler Lee, Stoot earned his first USTA ball as the Easter Bowl champion.
"Dad was like you're not playing, and I'm like, let's try it," Stoot said. "I don't know, it's crazy. I definitely felt my level rising throughout every one."
The only set Stoot lost this week was the first set in the second round to No. 8 seed Francisco Salmain, a match that was played over two days due to the stoppage for dangerous air quality due to blowing dust.
"That feels like a California thing," said Stoot, who won that match 2-6, 7-6(7), 6-4 and managed to close out Lee in straight sets and avoid another particle-filled windstorm that appeared during the late afternoon.
Stoot got off to a quick start but Lee came back from 0-2 down, only to play a poor game serving at 4-5, which gave Stoot the set. The second set was competitive, but Stoot was holding serve easily, while Lee was regularly playing deuce games on his serve.
"I felt like I could go for more on my return game," said Stoot, who has verbally committed to LSU for 2026. "It's a good feeling, I feel more relaxed, more loose."
Lee acknowledged that Stoot's serve was a problem for him, as was Stoot's defense, which wore him down after a week of long singles and doubles matches.
"Every time I would step in he made me feel like I had to go for more than I actually had to," said the 15-year-old from Southern California, who won four three-set matches to reach his first Level 1 singles final, including a quarterfinal victory over top seed Shaan Patel "And maybe I shouldn't split sets with everyone on the way to the finals."
Like Stoot, 16s champion Marcel Latak was playing in his first USTA Level 1 final, but unlike Stoot, the No. 9 seed had to win his gold ball the hard way, coming from a set down to defeat No. 8 seed Tristan Stratton 5-7, 6-1, 6-1.
Up 3-1 in the opening set, Latak lost four straight games, but Stratton was unable to serve out the set at 5-3. But with Latak serving at 5-6, a five-deuce game went Stratton's way to give him the lead.
Latak took control quickly in the second set, and the 10-minute break couldn't stall his momentum, although Latak had to save a break point serving at 1-1 in the third.
"I told myself on that break point that I just needed to have a big serve there," said the 16-year-old from Chicago. "And once I had that big serve, I won a couple of points in a row, and then the momentum was all on my side, and he was struggling to throw me off, because I was right there in that zone."
"He raised his level a lot in the second and third," said the 15-year-old from New York. "I had a break point in the third, but he stepped it up again. He played really well. His serve got a lot better in the second and third set, he was placing it well. All the shots he was missing in the first, he made in the second and third."
Latak spoke with his father during the 10-minute break between the second and third sets, and he took the advice to heart.
"He told me not to rush myself, because I'll have my chances during the point, if I keep building, I'll get that shorter ball and then I can go for it," Latak said. "If I lost two points, regroup, put a couple of balls in the court, and then go for another one."
Latak also had advice from his sister Thea, who won the Easter Bowl 12s title in 2019.
"It's not like it was bound to happen, but it feels like a full-circle moment," said Latak, who will play two of the ITFs in Florida in May. "I watched her win her match (7-6(3), 6-3 over Daniela Borruel) and mine was a really tight one today too. She was there basically the whole time too."
No. 9 seed Armina Kockinis pointed to one shot that was key in claiming her second gold ball, with the 2024 Hard Courts 14s champion counting on her serve to get her out of tough spots, as it did in her 6-3, 6-0 win over No. 7 seed Carolina Castro in the final.
"I've been working on my serve a lot and that's what got me through this whole tournament," said the 15-year-old from Southern California, who had two aces in the second game of the match to consolidate the break she got to open the match.
But it was her service game at 4-3 in the first that turned the tide permanently in her favor.
Kockinis needed seven deuces to get out of it, saving two break points, then breaking Castro quickly in the next game to take the set.
"I knew the importance of that game, I was up 30-0, so I knew I had to get that game, I didn't want it to be 4-all," Kockinis said. "I knew I needed to hold serve and thank god that's what I did."
"I had a lot of opportunities that I just didn't take or couldn't take, because she played really, really well," said the 16-year-old from Maryland. "But she had the momentum the entire time and I just couldn't pick up rhythm, and I wasn't my best but I think I played a really good tournament considering all the hours I was on court."
In the doubles finals, one Easter Bowl streak ended but another continued, with Bella Payne suffering her first loss in two years at Indian Wells in the girls doubles final. Payne, who won the 16s doubles title with Ava Rodriguez, lost in the final with Emily Deming in the 18s, with Kenzie Nguyen and Amy Lee earning the 6-3, 6-4 victory in the late afternoon final.
Nguyen and Lee, playing together for the second time after reaching the semifinals at a J200 in the Dominican Republic, broke Payne at 4-all in the second set, but went down 30-40 in the game. Nguyen, serving in that game, was visibly frustrated, but Lee reassured her and they won the next two points to take the title.
"Amy is very caring and very sweet," said Nguyen, a 17-year-old from Southern California. "I'm a little more explosive on court, you could say. So when she comes to calm me down, she always tells me, it's ok, next one, next one, reminds me that we're still in it."
Lee wasn't expecting an Easter Bowl title, but was happy to earn her second gold ball.
"We played a lot better than we thought," said the 17-year-old Southern Californian.
The streak extended was that of Tyler Lee and Brayden Tallakson, who won the 16s doubles title in 2024 and took home the 18s title Sunday evening, in a final, like the girls, that was between unseeded teams.
William Kleege, who did not make the singles draw and William McEwan, who was the eighth alternate but did get into the draw, caught fire in the doubles, but fell just a few points short of a Cinderella title, with Lee and Tallakson taking a 7-6(5), 1-6, 6-4 decision.
"I've been playing with a different partner for the past two months," said Lee, who now has four gold balls in doubles and last week reached the semifinals of the ITF J300 in San Diego with Justin Riley Anson. "He found another partner, so we thought, why not run it back?"
"I was a backup for him," said Tallakson, a 17-year-old, also from Southern California. Lee disagreed. "I would not have won this without him."
After seeing a 4-2 lead in the third set disappear after dropping two straight deciding points, Lee and Tallakson went up 5-4, then earned 15-40 on Kleege's serve. Those two opportunities went by the wayside, but a good Lee return and a putaway by Tallakson put their Easter Bowl winning streak at 10.
Replays of the girls 16s and boys 18s singles finals and the girls 16s and boys 18s doubles finals can be found at the Easter Bowl YouTube Channel.
Results of today's action are below, with the full draws at the USTA tournament website.
B16s consolation final:
Erik Schinnerer d. Sebastian Inaki Godoy 6-3, 6-3
B16s third place:
Keshav Muthuvel[9] d. Alexander Suhanitski[2] 7-5, 6-0
B16s doubles final:
Akshay Mirmira and Boning Wang d. Erik Schinnerer and Nicholas Pedraza[5] 6-3, 5-7, 6-4
B16s doubles third place:
Mason Vaughan and William Zhang d. Peyton Barrett and Anthony Dry 6-0, 6-7(5), 6-2
B18s consolation final:
Ethan Chung d. Yashwin Krishnakumar 6-4, 3-6, 10-4
B18s third place:
Winston Wooin Lee[9] d. Cooper Han 6-2, 1-0, ret.
B18s doubles final:
Tyler Lee and Brayden Tallakson d. William Kleege and William McEwan 7-6(5), 1-6, 6-4
B18s doubles third place:
Andre Alcantara and Rishvanth Krishna[5] d. James Quattro and Nathaniel Suh 7-5, 7-5
G16s consolation final:
Addy Rogin d. Alanna Ingalsbe 6-7(5), 7-5, 10-7
G16s third place:
Carlota Moreno[3] d. Ciara Harding 7-5, 6-4
Carlota Moreno and Addy Rogin[2] d. Kingsley Wolf and Autumn Xu[1] 6-3, 7-6(5)
G16s doubles third place:
Whitney Burke and Kaiden Greer d. Sydney Barnhart and Ariana Morris 6-1, 7-5
G18s consolation final:
Calla McGill[9] d. Hi'llani Williams walkover
G18s third place:
Nicole Weng[9] d. Kennedy Drenser-Hagmann 6-1, 6-4
G18s doubles final:
Amy Lee and Kenzie Nguyen d. Bella Payne and Emily Deming 6-3, 6-4
G18s doubles third place:
Carrie-Anne Hoo and Isabelle DeLuccia[5] d. Chloe Qin and Bella Jacutin-Mariona 6-4, 6-4
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