2025 Orange Bowl Championships Begin with Chris Evert Attending Stadium Court Ceremony Honoring Her; Top Seed Barros Tested, No. 2 Seed Vladson Upset; Mixed Results for IMG Academy 16s Champions

©Colette Lewis 2025--
Fort Lauderdale FL--

In the 20 years I've been attending the Eddie Herr, now known as the IMG Academy International Championships, I've made the trip to the other side of the state for the Orange Bowl Championships. The first six years of my coverage of that event were at Crandon Park's hard courts on Key Biscayne; the next 13 years, the historic event was held at the Veltri Tennis Center in Plantation Florida. 

Today marked the opening of a new era for the Orange Bowl, with the first main draw matches of the ITF J500 tournament played at the recently renovated Jimmy Evert Tennis Center in Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale. 

The green clay courts with newly installed subsurface irrigation were buzzing with activity as the completion of the first round of 16s division began at 8 a.m. But the excitement reached its peak at 10 a.m., when the dedication and unveiling of the Chris Evert Stadium Court drew hundreds of fans, coaches, administrators and city dignitaries, eager to connect with one of the great champions of the sport.

Football and tennis commentator Chris Fowler, now a colleague of Evert's at ESPN, served as the Master of Ceremonies, and led off with one of the themes of the morning: how Chris Evert sparked his interest in professional tennis.

Remarks by the city's mayor and councilman, USTA 's General Manager of US Tennis Tracy Davies, Orange Bowl Committee Chairman Henri Crockett and Orange Bowl Tennis Committee Chairman Doug Wylie detailed the years-long effort to find a new home for the Orange Bowl, with the collaboration between the City of Fort Lauderdale, the Orange Bowl Committee and the USTA leading to the 9.5 million dollar renovation of the public courts where Jimmy Evert taught his five children and thousands of other young players the game.

Evert, a three-time Orange Bowl champion, then stepped to the podium to talk about her father, his legacy, the significance of the tournament and what the facelift to the venue will mean for the future of the sport in South Florida.

After the new Chris Evert scoreboard was unveiled, Evert posed for many photos with fans and VIPs, then did a short mixed zone interview session with local media.

Prior to the event Evert was out watching a match featuring one of the players training at the Evert Academy in Boca Raton, and in her speech she reiterated how important this tournament has been for its nearly 80-year history.

"It's huge," said Evert, who won the 16s in 1968 and the 18s in 1969 and 1970. "It's the biggest international tournament in junior tennis. It is the standard for the best. Usually if you look at players that won the Orange Bowl, they turn pro, almost 99 percent of them. It's a great stepping stone, so to now have this at my dad's facility, it's a great tournament, I enjoyed it, and I feel very privileged."

Keaton Hance had the honor of playing the first match in Orange Bowl history on the Chris Evert Stadium Court, with the No. 5 seed defeating Siu Chi Nicholas Cheng of Hong Kong 6-4, 6-4.

I asked the 17-year-old how he felt about christening the court, and what he knew about Evert.

"It's amazing, wow, first one," said Hance, a Southern Californian who trains with the USTA in Lake Nona. "All I know is that my mom (Courtney) knows a lot about her. I don't know too much, but I know she was an amazing player, that's she's a huge part of tennis history."

Hance complimented the court itself, which was a contrast with his last tournament, where he made the final of the ITF J500 in Merida Mexico on red clay.

"They're very nice, I know they have the underground (irrigation) which is really good for the green clay especially," said Hance. "They are playing really well, pretty slow, which I like. I just got here a couple of days ago but what I've seen is really high quality."

A first J500 final was one milestone for Hance in Mexico, a second was his first solo trip to a tournament.

"I was actually alone," said Hance, who resorted to a hitting wall for a warmup as he continued to advance. "Towards the end of the tournament a lot of guys went back home and only a few guys left. But it was a really good experience being alone and playing matches alone."

Several players who played in Merida arrived the following week in Bradenton feeling ill, but Hance took no chances, eating every meal at a Starbucks.

"I've had a lot bad experiences because of my stomach in Mexico and South America," Hance said. "So I stuck to the same thing every single day. It sounds bad, but I ate Starbucks every single day for every single meal. But you know what? I got to the finals so it worked good enough."

While Hance was playing on Chris Evert Stadium, top seed Victoria Barros, like Hance a Merida finalist, was being tested on Court 10, with the 15-year-old from Brazil beating Maja Pawelska of Poland 7-6(6), 7-6(7). Pawelska served for the first set at 6-5 and had two set points in the second set tiebreaker, but Barros was steadier in the key moments to pull out the win.

No. 2 seed Laima Vladson of Uzbekistan lost in the first round for the second consecutive week, with wild card Yael Saffar, ranked 132 spots below the ITF No. 13, getting the 6-4, 7-6(6) victory.

Boys top seed Yannick Alexandrescou of Romania, one of the players who withdrew from Bradenton due to illness after competing in Mexico, defeated Jan Chlodnicki of Poland 6-4, 6-2.

No. 2 seed Jack Kennedy, who played Ronit Karki before the women's and men's exhibition A Racquet at The Rock in New Jersey Sunday, will face Emanuel Ivanisevic of Croatia, the son of Goran Ivanisevic Tuesday.

Three seeds, including Vladson, lost today, with Agassi Rusher defeating No. 15 seed Linus Lagerbohm of Finland 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 and Anita Tu beating No. 15 seed Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi of India 6-0, 6-3.

No. 16 seed Andy Johnson barely escaped the upset bid of Emilo Camacho of Ecuador 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, in a match that drew a large crowd of spectators crammed around Court 12 for all the drama.

After a long set point that earned him a split, Camacho immediately collapsed from cramps just behind the baseline. After a medical timeout, play resumed, but Johnson was also experiencing some cramping in his calves, and he saw break leads disappear twice before he closed out the match with a good serve.

"We played a pretty long point, we were both in the corners for that point and I am came to net, missed a ball at the net, a dropper volley that barely clipped the net. He was full sprinting to it and ended up cramping on the way and tumbling," Johnson said.  

Johnson said the cramps were specific to certain movements, so many of the rallies showed no signs of them.

"He was cramping but only on the corners," Johnson said of his fellow 16-year-old. "It was kind of like me, if I'd run for a ball I'd feel it, and same thing for him. But overall, I'd say it was one of those fun matches. Everything was happening that everyone would want to see. It was definitely a good experience."

After a day off Sunday, the IMG Academy International 16s champions made the switch from hard to clay courts, with only one of the two advancing.

Girls champion Adelina Iftime defeated Sophia Osipova 6-1, 6-0 but boys champion Jang Junseou of Korea lost to Kahven Singh 6-1, 6-7(1), 6-2. Boys finalist Artem Dmytrenko lost to No. 8 seed Nicolas Pedraza 6-1, 6-2. Girls finalist London Evans, who received a wild card into the 18s, plays Tuesday.

The weather was warm and sunny for the Evert Stadium ceremony and for several hours after it concluded, but by 3:15 p.m. dark clouds began to build and the lightning alarm sounded with four 18s matches still in progress. Those matches will be finished Tuesday, weather permitting, with rain again in the forecast. All first round 16s singles matches were completed Monday as scheduled, but the first round of doubles were disrupted by rain. 

The first round of 18s doubles are scheduled for the late afternoon, with Alexandrescou and Japan's Ryo Tabata the No. 1 seeds in the boys draw, with US Open champions Hance and Kennedy the No. 2 seeds. 

Vladson and Sonja Zhenikhova of Germany are the No. 1 seeds in the girls draw, with Bradenton champions Kanon Sawashiro of Japan and Xinran Sun of China the No. 2 seeds.