News & Features

Share:

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. - After the cancellation of Easter Bowl 2020 and a relocation to San Diego last year, the prestigious USTA Spring Championships returned to the Coachella Valley last week. Early rounds of the 12s and 14s divisions were played at other venues in the area, but the semifinalists and finalists had the opportunity to play at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the site of the recent ATP and WTA BNP Paribas Open.

Girls 12s Singles Champion Baotong Xu
© Zoo Tennis

Two unseeded girls captured the singles titles, with Baotong Xu defeating Yilin Chen 4-6, 6-2, 10-6 in the 12s final and Nicole Okhtenberg also coming back in her 4-6, 6-0, 6-0 victory over Avery Nguyen, a No. 9 seed, in the 14s final.

Xu, who turns 12 this month, had no trouble in her first three matches of the tournament, but needed the match tiebreaker that is played in lieu of a final set in the 12s to earn victories over No. 2 seed Filipa Delgado in the quarterfinals and No. 3 seed Anjani Vickneswaran in the semifinals, in addition to the one she won in the championship match.

Chen, who will be 13 in November, was also familiar with the format coming into the final, having won her first two matches in match tiebreakers, as well as her 6-3, 2-6, 10-6 win over No. 5 seed Lyla Middleton in the semifinals.

In the championship match, Chen started with a break and held on to it, with Xu still early in the process of coping with Chen's high looping balls.

"She played great in the first set," said Xu, of Kirkland, Washington. "She was staying really consistent and she was making me really uncomfortable. I was taking the balls early, but in the first set I was missing those, because her shots were on the baseline, very aggressive. But in the second set, I just stayed lower, played confident. On those shots you really need to be that way, because if not, the ball's going to go into the net or just out."