TENNIS / EASTER BOWL JUNIOR TOURNAMENT : Wolters Stumps Fullerton’s Kim

All week long, Kevin Kim had answers for his opponents. No matter what they did, Kim was able to take his game up a level or change tactics.

But an annoying wind and Ryan Wolters’ blistering serve left Kim speechless Saturday. Wolters defeated Kim, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, in less than 80 minutes Saturday in the boys’ 18s finals at the Easter Bowl Junior Tennis Tournament at the Riviera Resort and Racquet Club.

Fullerton’s Kim seemed on his way to an easy victory when he broke Walters’ serve twice in the first set to lead, 4-1. But he won only three points over the next five games as the top-seeded Wolters took the first set.

“I just kind of let it slip,” said Kim, who had not dropped a set in the tournament until Saturday. “He started playing really well. He broke me twice. I lost it from there.”

But Kim regained the momentum in the second set by breaking the serve of his roommate at Palmer Tennis Academy twice.

“I didn’t feel like I was losing my serve, I felt like he was breaking it,” said Wolters, who has signed a letter of intent to attend Stanford.

Kim, second-seeded, won the set, 6-2, but he lost his serve in the fourth game of the third set to fall behind, 3-1.

“It was real windy and I couldn’t get a rhythm on my shots,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything.”

Neither Kim nor Wolters could come to the net like they wanted, but the conditions seemed to affect Kim more.

“He was hitting his ground strokes so hard, the only chance to come in was when he was short and he wasn’t short much,” Kim said.

After leading, 3-1, in the third, Wolters lost only one point on his next two service games to take a 5-2 lead. As he felt the match slip away, Kim tried to speed things up by taking less than half of his allotted time during changeovers. But Wolters wouldn’t have any of it, taking the full time.

“I was just trying to get in a groove,” Kim said.

But it never happened as Kim netted an approach shot, double-faulted, hit a forehand long and then netted another forehand to finish the match.

Kim and Wolters roomed together at the Riviera all week, ate pie together at Friday night at a restaurant and worked out together before the match.

“Before the match, we joked around but didn’t talk much about the match,” Kim said.

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Easter Bowl notes

Amanda Basica of Lomita won her second Easter Bowl title in four years, defeating third-seeded Brie Rippner of Chico, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6), in the girls’ 18s final. The fourth-seeded Basica won the girls’ 16s in 1992. . . . In the boys’ 16s finals, top-seeded Rodolfo Rake of Ft. Lauderdale defeated Rafael DeMesa of Key Biscayne, Fla., 6-3, 6-1.