By Steve Pratt | @Tennis_Now | Monday, March 31, 2025
Photo credit: Fila Easter Bowl
A pair of talented 17-year-old Floridians nearly skipped the Fila Easter Bowl.
On finals Sunday, Girls’ and Boys’ 18s singles champions Bella Payne and Nikolas Stoot were gold-ball winners.
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Unseeded Floridians bound for Southeastern Conference colleges shared a bigger bond: Payne and Stoot had in common coming into the 57th annual FILA Easter Bowl – both were close to not even making the trip West.
But following their straight-set wins on Sunday to capture USTA National Gold balls at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, Payne and Stoot couldn’t have been happier with their decision to play the prestigious junior event that concluded on Sunday.
“It feels surreal…It feels insane,” said Payne from Bradenton, Fla., after beating No. 9 seed Nadia Valdez from San Antonio, Texas, 7-5, 6-3. “I definitely didn’t have expectations to get here. It just feels amazing. I can’t even describe it.”
It was the second straight year the future Georgia Bulldog Payne swept through the draws as last year’s 16s Easter Bowl champion has now won 24 straight sets over 12 matches and two Gold balls in singles becoming the first Easter Bowl player since world top-10 player Emma Navarro won the 16s and 18s singles titles.
Payne was shooting for a fourth Easter Bowl Gold ball having won the 16 doubles last year, but fell just short as she and Emily Deming (Fallbrook, Calif.) lost to Amy Lee and Kenzie Nguyen in the Girls’ 18s doubles final, 6-3, 6-4.
Not only did Payne not drop a set in singles for the second straight year, she also avenged losses to three players who had beaten her in just the past month in Valdez, Nguyen and Kennedy Drenser-Hagmann.
Payne got down early 1-4 but rallied to go up 5-4 and take the tight first set. “I finally got some errors from her at four-all,” she said. “At five-all I kept staying aggressive and kept hitting through my nerves. I was never counting her out. Sometimes I get tentative when I get nervous.”
Payne can’t believe the success she’s had in her favorite place to play tennis. “After Winter Nationals I took a little bit of a mental break because my emotions were all over the place,” she said. “At a certain point I was thinking of not even playing here.”
The same was true for Stoot, who said he decided to come to Indian Wells just one day before his flight despite a sore shoulder and the urging of his father to say home and rest it. Miami’s Stoot, who is headed to Louisiana State University, used his effective lefty game to beat the fellow unseeded Tyler Lee from Tustin, 6-4, 6-2. It was the first USTA national ball of any kind for Stoot while Lee won his first singles ball with the silver.
“My serve was working the most, especially on break points,” Stoot said. “It’s crazy looking back and thinking that we almost didn’t come here.”
Lee did eventually get his Easter Bowl Gold ball later in the day as he and Brayden Tallakson downed William McEwan and William Kleege, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 6-4. It was the sixth overall USTA ball for Lee in doubles and his fourth Gold.
Just like his sister did in the Girls’ 12s in 2019, Marcel Latak from Darien, Ill., outside of Chicago, grabbed his first USTA ball of any kind in the 16s final as he beat No. 8 Tristan Stratton from Forest Hills, N.Y., 5-7, 6-1, 6-1.
“It’s kind of a relief and a weight off my shoulders because I’ve really wanted this.
In the first set I thought I was trying to do too much,” Latak said. “I wanted to play some unreal points and unreal shots because this is the final and that was unrealistic. So after I started losing a bunch of points, I thought I should just take it one point at a time and I was able to slow down and do that.”
In the Girls’ 16s singles finals, Armira Kockinis of La Habra Heights, Calif., used her big serve to beat Carolina Castro from Stevensville, Md., 6-3, 6-0, and added another Gold ball to her collection having won the Girls’ 14s Hardcourts last year.
“Honestly, I still can’t believe [I won],” said Kockinis, who is coached by Jason Leavitt and Eric Diaz from Tier-1 Performance in Fountain Valley.
In the Girls’ 16s doubles final, it was the No. 2 seeds Carlota Moreno and Addy Rogin taking out the top-seeded team of Kingsley Wolf and Autumn Xu, 6-3, 7-5 (5). In the Boys’ 16s doubles final, unseeded Akshay Mirmira and Boning Wang beat No. 5 Nicolas Pedraza and Erik Schinnerer, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.
USTA SPORTSMANSHIP WINNERS:
Girls’ 18s: Emily Deming, Fallbrook, Calif.
Girls’ 16s: Aarini Bhattacharya, Oaktown, Va.
Girls’ 14s: Emery Combs, Conway, S.C.
Girls’ 12s: Ayenxavia Calugay, Las Vegas, Nev.
Boys’ 18s: Tyler Lee, Tustin, Calif.
Boys’ 16s: Keshav Muthuvel, Pleasanton, Calif.
Boys’ 14s: Rafael Pawar, Boca Raton, Fla.
Boys’ 12s: Samuel Hartley, Charlottesville, Va.
