Top Seeds Noel, Boyer Advance with ITF Easter Bowl First Round Now Complete; Semifinals Set in 12s and 14s; Girls 16s Top Seeds Pielet, Xu Eliminated

©Colette Lewis 2018--
Indian Wells, CA--

After eight seeds were eliminated on the opening day of the Adidas ITF Grade B1 Easter Bowl Monday, Tuesday's first round matches went more to form, although girls top seed Alexa Noel was taken to a third set before subduing qualifier Katrina Scott 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. Boys top seed Tristan Boyer also faced a qualifier in his first round match, earning a straightforward 6-1, 6-3 victory on a clear and breezy day at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

Noel, currently No. 11 in the ITF World Junior rankings, didn't feel she handled the conditions well.

"The wind on the side furthest was so with me that every time I accelerated through the ball, it would just kind of fly," said the 15-year-old from New Jersey. "She dealt well with it, I think I could have adjusted better, but I'm just happy I found a way. I've got to play a lot better tomorrow."

Although Noel was not happy with her level of play, she gave credit to the 13-year-old Scott.

"She's a good player too, you know," Noel said. "She's young and she has a lot of potential. It sucks we had to play first round, because it was a really close match."

Noel will face Marlee Zein in Wednesday's second round.

Boyer was able to take advantage of a shaky start by James Ignatowich, but the match tightened considerably in the second set.

"I think maybe he was a little bit nervous or something," said the 16-year-old, currently No. 14 in the ITF World Junior rankings. "He started to make a few more balls and I had a little bit of a lapse of focus. He has a pretty good serve, so if you're not really locked in, you're not going to break him."

Boyer let an early break of serve in the second set get away, but he didn't show any frustration or negative emotion, a sign of the improvement in his mental approach that has been a priority in the past six months.

"A lot has changed since then. I'm kind of a different player and I've worked a lot on that side of my game," said Boyer, who received a game penalty in the third set of the final round of qualifying at last year's US Open Junior championships, which cost him the match.  "Now I think it's one of, if not my biggest, strengths on the court, so you're probably not going to see that anymore."

Boyer, who earlier this month qualified for the $25,000 Futures tournament in Bakersfield, also had the opportunity to play in the qualifying of the BNP Paribas Open, losing to ATP No. 116 Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium 6-1, 7-6(3).

"I played prequalies and lost in the semis to Henry Craig," Boyer said. "Something happened with the guy who was supposed to get it, and I ended up getting the wild card, and it was just a really, really fun experience."

Boyer said he was encouraged by his performance.

"Obviously I have a lot of work to do before I can actually beat those guys, but I felt like it was a promising result, for sure," Boyer said. "I found out only like 24 hours before, so it was kind of like a shock and I practiced here at like 9 p.m. the night before so I was really happy with the way I played given the situation."

Boyer will face Blaise Bicknell in the second round Wednesday.

Both of the 2017 Easter Bowl 16s champions advanced to the second round with wins on Tuesday.  Emma Navarro defeated qualifier Marcela Cruz 6-3, 6-0 and No. 11 seed Brandon Nakashima downed qualifier Luke Vandecasteele 6-0, 7-6(0).

The only seed to lose on Tuesday was No. 16 seed Tomas Kopczynski, who fell to qualifier Roger Chou 6-3, 6-1.

The second round of the girls 16s produced two major upsets, with top seed Gianna Pielet falling to India Houghton 6-4, 6-4 and No. 2 seed Valencia Xu going out to Mary Grace Armistead 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

The semifinals are set for the 12s and 14s, with the quarterfinal results below.  See the TennisLink site for the singles and doubles draws and times for Wednesday.

Live streaming is available for Court No. 2 at Easterbowl.com.

Tuesday 12s and 14s quarterfinal singles results:

Boys 14s:
Samir Banerjee[1] d. John Kim [5] 7-6(4), 6-4
Jiaxi Ma[7] d. Max Fardanesh[3] 6-4, 6-2
Bruno Kuzuhara[10] d. Louis Cloud[8] 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3
Evan Wen[6] d. Kurt Miller 6-1, 6-2

Boys 12s:
Raghav Jangbahadur[10] d. Kaylan Bigun[7] 6-3, 6-3
Alexander Frusina d. Adam Sun[6] 7-5, 6-1
Meecah Bigun[15] d. Lucas Coriaty[8] 7-6, 6-2
Rudy Quan[2] d. Adhithya Ganesan[13] 6-4, 6-1

Girls 14s:
Reese Brantmeier[1] d. Carri Hayes 3-6, 6-3, 6-1
Sophie Williams[7] d. Priya Nelson[4] 7-5, 2-6, 6-1
Elena Yu[3] d. Alexis Blokhina[16] 6-3, 6-2
Alexandra Torre[2] d. Tomi Main[11] 6-1, 6-4

Girls 12s:
Stephanie Yakoff[1] d. Natalia Perez[5] 6-2, 6-1
Elisabeth Dunac[8] d. Madeleine Jessup[4] 1-6, 7-5, 10-2
Brooklyn Olson[3] d. Gayathri Krishnan 6-3, 6-4
Clervie Ngounoue[2] d. Grace Levelston[7] 6-4, 6-1