SAN DIEGO, June 2, 2025 (Press Release)
At 26 years of age, Keegan Smith is hoping the beginning of the 2025 SoCal Pro Series serves as the marker for his own tennis renaissance, and a re-birth and re-dedication to his singles career.
The San Diego resident and 2017 Point Loma High School graduate completed his week-long tour de force at Barnes Tennis Center by winning his third professional men’s singles title, 6-2, 6-3, over University of San Diego graduate student Savriyan Danilov in the final of the $15,000-purse tournament on the USTA Pro Circuit and ITF World Tennis Tour.
In the women’s singles final, England’s Katie Swan upended top-seeded Serbian Dejana Radanovic, 6-4, 6-0 in a matchup of two players each vying for their 13th ITF singles championship.
The second-seeded Smith won consecutive SoCal Pro Series doubles titles last year in Lakewood, but this is his first SoCal Pro Series singles championship, and his first ITF singles crown since 2022. He achieved the feat without dropping a set, only being pushed to a tiebreaker once.
Yet, winning this first pro title at home perhaps distinguishes itself as his most special moment in pro tennis as evidenced by the roar he let out after going up a break at 3-2 in the second set and taking a lap around his side of the court while shouting in exultation, fist-pumping and high-fiving fans after winning a game point for 5-2 in the concluding set.
Post-match, there was his extended embrace with his mother, Carol, and he choked himself up, with misty eyes, in his remarks to the crowd, which included many family members and friends, during the on-court championship ceremony.
“I’m just a very emotional guy. I cry a lot,” Smith said. “I was trying to keep it in the whole tournament, not trying to go too crazy and trying to keep it cool but, like, my insides were screaming. Especially with everyone on the sidelines cheering for me really loudly. I just let it out and it felt good. I didn’t even really let it all out. I’m sure later today I’ll be crying like a little girl.”
Smith admitted having thoughts of his parents, Jim and Carol, when delivering his championship acceptance speech during the ceremony and winning a pro title for the first time with both in attendance.
Said Smith: “We’ve gone through a lot. She’s drove me to so many tournaments and so many different practices. It’s been a long road. She knows all the (stuff) I’ve gone through. They’re both really competitive and they both want it just as bad as me. They’re kind of hard on me sometimes. They’re doing it because they know I want it and they know that I love it. I couldn’t have asked for better parents. They have sacrificed so much of their lives for me to do well. Without them, I don’t know where the hell I would be.”
As for where his singles game is at 26, Smith thinks Sunday could be a landmark moment. Those on the outside may peg the 6-foot-7 Smith, the 2019 NCAA Division I men’s doubles national champion for UCLA who holds four ITF Futures doubles titles, as a doubles specialist, but Smith doesn’t believe his singles game is blooming too late.
Smith (No. 533 ATP ranking) claims he has hit a growth spurt, a rising level of maturity and professionalism, a renewed energy and an acceptance of the training grind that it takes to climb the ladder in pro tennis.
“My athleticism, my grit, competitiveness, it’s all there. I just recently have been putting in the work, and I think that’s what’s been different,” Smith said. “Maybe not taking it as professionally as I could have (before), and that’s been hurting me. It’s pretty obvious to me that’s what it takes and everyone’s kind of telling me that. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it but I think, now, I am. My parents are great. I have people that push me away from the stuff that was bringing me down and they are helping me.
“I think the biggest difference this week is I just brought the competitive spirit, like I was gonna win, no matter what. And I felt like I’ve kind of shied away from that, and I feel like it’s kind of coming back. I really wanted to win this week. Having people there for me, cheering for me, helped bring it out, for sure. Everyone helped me so much this week. Coming and supporting me was super sick.”
If it is of any further inspiration or motivation to him, Smith joins the likes of top-100 ATP players – and Californians – Learner Tien and Ethan Quinn on the list of SoCal Pro Series singles champions at Barnes Tennis Center.
It was almost a year ago to the day on the same Barnes Stadium Court that Tien was No. 434 in the ATP rankings when he won the first of four 2024 SoCal Pro Series singles titles. As a potential parallel, Smith plans to play these first four weeks of this SoCal Pro Series, including the next two weeks at the University of San Diego and Week 4 at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club.
Said Smith: “There’s no reason I shouldn’t have this as a living and be, you know, a (ATP) top-100, top-50, whatever it is. I’m going to keep putting in the work and we’ll see where it takes me. But I’m pretty confident that I’ll be playing (Grand) Slams and playing this big events pretty soon. Just got to work really hard to get there, but I’ve got faith in myself to do it.”
Smith collected 15 ATP singles ranking points and a $2,160 winner’s prize. Danilov (No. 972 ATP ranking), who holds one ITF singles and doubles championship, received eight ATP ranking points and a $1,272 check as runner-up.
Swan, 26, won her first ITF singles title in three years without dropping a set this past week. The 2025 SoCal Pro Series opener served as her third tournament back from a 10-month layoff from tournament play due to ongoing, chronic back spasms.
“I probably wouldn’t have expected to win a tournament so soon, but I also came into this tournament with the goal to win it,” Swan said. “It’s special because of the journey that I’ve gone through to get back to this level. To be able to win five matches and have no pain in my body is the real win. It’s the lowest level on the professional tour, but it means a lot that I was even able to get the point of playing five matches in a row, so I’m happy and I’m looking forward to building on this. I have a lot of belief in my game. The injuries I’ve had have really stunted my progress. I don’t really know what my limits are, but I want to just see, when I’m healthy, how far I can go.”
Currently residing in Phoenix, Swan used what will be her only SoCal Pro Series participation to build up her match play and fitness before heading back to England later this month to compete in the pre-qualifying stage for Wimbledon.
A 2015 Easter Bowl Girls-18s singles finalist who was once ranked as the world’s No. 2 Junior player, Swan feels she has a new lease on life because her latest injury comeback has been pain-free to date.
Swan added: “This is the best I’ve felt in, like, two years. It (back spasms) was happening very often to the point of every tournament I played, I would have to stop or retire. I considered not coming back but I found the right treatment that I needed. In January, I went to see a doctor in Pennsylvania and he worked on my nerves and that really seemed to reset my whole system and did the trick. I had two weeks of super-intense treatment. It was so painful that it made me cry some days. After that, I noticed big improvements.”
Swan (No. 998 WTA ranking) gained 15 WTA singles world ranking points and a $2,352 prize, while Radanovic (No. 516 WTA ranking) received 10 WTA world ranking points and a $1,470 runner-up share.
Saturday’s SoCal Pro Series doubles finals favored the No. 1 seeds in Week 1.
Haley Giavara (WTA doubles ranking No. 209), a San Diego resident, 2019 Serra High School graduate and Cal-Berkeley graduate, claimed her 10th ITF pro doubles crown in the past two years as she and Ukrainian partner Anita Sahdiieva (LSU, Baylor University) breezed by USC sophomore Lily Fairclough and Lily Taylor, 6-1, 6-3. Giavara and Sahdiieva earned 15 WTA doubles ranking points each and split a $955 winner’s check. Aussies Fairclough and Taylor collected 10 WTA doubles ranking points each and split a $515 runner-up prize.
Englishman Finn Bass (a member of Baylor’s 2021 NCAA Division I dual team runner-up squad) and Matt Hulme, of Australia, captured the men’s title in dispatching the unseeded Mexican team of Daniel Moreno and Manuel Sanchez, 6-4, 7-5. Bass and Hulme gained 15 ATP doubles ranking points each and split a $930 champion’s prize, while runners-up Moreno, a Loyola Marymount University product, and Sanchez banked eight ATP doubles ranking points each and split a $540 check.
Match of the Week
Claire Hill d. Olivia Center, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 (Women’s Singles Quarterfinal)
Hill, 18, and South Pasadena resident and UCLA standout Center, 19, earned their first WTA world ranking points this week in advancing to their quarterfinal matchup after coming off successful freshman seasons in the college ranks – Hill featured regularly in the lineup for NCAA Division I Women’s (team) tournament semifinalist North Carolina after her early enrollment in January, and Center was a significant contributor for the Bruins in singles and doubles through the Big Ten Conference season/postseason and the NCAA Women’s Championships.
Center profiles as a potential future star on the SoCal Pro Series. She and fellow Pasadena native and Bruins teammate Kate Fakih partnered in the 2023 US Open women’s doubles main draw and reached the 2024-25 NCAA Division I women’s doubles individual final in November – just missing a national championship through a 10-point, third-set tiebreaker defeat.
Last week, Center and Fakih were selected as one of four 2024-25 NCAA doubles teams to compete in the new US Open Wild Card Playoffs June 17-18 in Orlando, Fla. The winning team from this four-team mini-tournament (semifinals and finals) will be awarded a wildcard berth into the 2025 US Open’s women’s doubles main draw.
Remaining 2025 SoCal Pro Series tournament schedule
- June 2-8 – University of San Diego, San Diego
- June 9-15 – University of San Diego, San Diego
- June 16-22 – Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club, Rancho Santa Fe
- June 23-29 – Lakewood Tennis Center, Lakewood
- June 30-July 6 – Jack Kramer Club, Rolling Hills Estates
- July 7-13 – San Diego State University, San Diego
