A day after his first ITF men’s World Tennis Tour title in doubles at the Bakersfield California M25, 16-year-old wild card Michael Antonius won his first ITF men’s singles title, beating No. 2 seed Andrew Fenty, a former University of Michigan All-American, 7-6(3), 6-2. Antonius, the youngest American to win a pro title since 2007 and the first in the 2010 birth year to win a pro title(stats courtesy of
Ariel Fernández on X), won the last three points of the opening set tiebreaker, and wasn’t taken to deuce in any of his four holds in the second set.
Antonius, who partnered with 18-year-old Gus Grumet for the doubles title, will move inside the ATP Top 900 with the 25 points gained this week. He was entered in the qualifying at the
M25 in Las Vegas, which is currently underway, but will get a special exempt into the main draw if he decides to play after the title this week. Tucson and San Diego ITF J300 champion Andy Johnson, a teammate of Antonius’s in the USA’s Junior Davis Cup championship team, accepted a main draw wild card into Las Vegas.
The
ITF J500 Banana Bowl concluded today in Gaspar Brazil, with both 16-year-old Nauhany Leme da Silva of Brazil and 17-year-old Dante Pagani of Argentina beating the top seeds in three sets to claim the titles. No. 4 seed Leme da Silva defeated Victoria Barros 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, while Pagani beat Yannik Alvarez of Puerto Rico 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.
Jack Secord and his partner Emilio Camacho of Ecuador lost in the boys doubles final Saturday, with the No. 2 seeds falling to No. 7 seeds Leon Sloboda and Marko Bekeni of Slovakia 6-0, 6-7(5), 10-8.
No. 4 seeds Maia Burcescu of Romania and Alyssa James of Jamaica beat top seeds Leme de Silva and Sol Ailin Larraya Guidi of Argentina 6-4, 6-0 in the girls doubles final.
The heat has been relentless in the first two days of
12s and 14s competition at the USTA Level 1 Easter Bowl in Indian Wells, with temperatures in the 100s leading to a change of format. If a third set is necessary, a 10-point match tiebreaker is played to decide the match, and with temperatures approaching 100 again Tuesday, the third round may also be played under that format.
I’ll be onsite beginning tomorrow, but Steve Pratt, the media assistant for the tournament, provided
a full recap at Easterbowl.com, with this rundown of the results of the top seeds in today’s second round:
The top seed in the Boys’ 14s, Ishaan Marla from Mason, Ohio, had two easy wins by identical 6-2, 6-1 scores and No. 2 Michael Chervenkov from Canton, Ga., did the same dropping a total of five games in his first two rounds.
In an All-Southern Cal matchup that produced an upset, Goleta’s Ciaran Tober-Bridges split sets with No. 7 Yi He Gao from Rancho Santa Fe and then took the super tiebreaker 10-6 to advance. Unseeded Aarian Nayak from Henderson, Nev., knocked off No. 4 seed and Lee’s doubles partner Evaan Mohan from Shelton, Conn., 6-3, 6-1.
In the Girls’ 14s, top-seed Nadia Poznick (Ann Arbor, Mich.) moved onto the third round but there were two big upsets in the second round as No. 3 Ava Chua (Brooklyn, N.Y.) lost to Angela Li from NorCal 11-9 in the tiebreaker and San Gabriel’s Isabelle Nguyen upset No. 5 Reese Ellingson (Saint Paul, Minn.), 6-1, 6-3.
In the Boys’ 12s, while No. 1 seeded Dmitriy Flyman from Hallandale Beach, Fla., was moving on and not dropping a game in his second round, 6-0, 6-0 win, that was not the case for No. 2 Yifan Nie from Great Neck, N.Y., who was upset by Mile Markham of Lawrence, Kan., 6-1, 6-4. In the Girls’ 12s, top seeds Chloe Anthony (Lakeville, Mass.), Summer Yang (McLean, Va.) and Valentina Singh Carvajal (Morristown, N.J.) all advanced.
Live streaming of stadium court action is available all week at the Easter Bowl YouTube channel, with Ken Thomas providing commentary.
The title today by Michael Antonius, who won the Easter Bowl 12s title in 2022, was overshadowed by the win by today of 2017 Easter Bowl 18s finalist Sebastian Korda over ATP No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz at the
Miami Open Masters 1000. Today’s 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 third round victory came in Korda’s first match ever against a world No. 1. For more on Korda’s win, see
this article from the ATP website.Two big Top 5 matchups this weekend saw one No. 1 team validate their claim to the top spot, with the other falling to a former (and future) No. 1.
On Saturday, the top-ranked Georgia women pummeled No. 4 Auburn 4-0 in Athens, handing the Tigers their first doubles point loss of the season and getting wins from lines 1, 2 and 5 to earn their second win over Auburn this season. A recap from georgiadogs.com is
here, with the full box score available
here.
Today, No. 4 Wake Forest hosted Virginia, which ascended to the No. 1 ranking this week, with the Demon Deacons taking a 4-2 decision. Wake, ranked No. 1 to start the season, will return to the top spot after taking the doubles point and getting wins at lines 3, 5 and 6. Virginia got their points at 1 and 4. For a complete rundown, see
this article from godeacs.com.
