SAN DIEGO, June 14, 2025
Southern Californians Alyssa Ahn and Tianmei Wang, both 18 and newly-minted high school graduates en route to becoming Stanford University freshman teammates in the fall, figure to spend a lot of time together and share much success on court with the NCAA tennis powerhouse in the foreseeable future.
This weekend at the University of San Diego, their paths might come together on opposite sides of the court in the SoCal Pro Series. The teenage sensations booked their first semifinal berths of 2025 on the USTA Pro Circuit and ITF World Tennis Tour.
Sixth-seeded Ahn returned to the SoCal Pro Series semis at USD for a second consecutive year after rolling to a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Seiina Atay, of Turkiye. Ahn will meet Poland’s Stefania Rogozinska-Dzik, the No. 4 seed who just completed her graduate student year at Loyola Marymount University, in Saturday’s second women’s semifinal.
Wang impressively pulled off a 6-2, 6-1 rout of No. 3 seed Mio Mushika, of Japan, to advance to her first ITF women’s semifinal in her sixth SoCal Pro Series tournament, and seventh career Futures event. Wang will have to go through Mushika’s sister, Mao (No. 7 seed; a rising junior at Cal), in a 10 a.m. Saturday semifinal to reach her first professional final.
Wang, who graduated from San Marino High School in her hometown mere days ago, had not made it past the second round in her previous four SoCal Pro Series tournaments dating back to last year.
A consistent SoCal Pro Series entrant who played in the SoCal Pro Series’ inaugural tournament as a Torrey Pines High School freshman in 2022, Ahn’s results have steadily improved from year to year to the point where she is now among those seeded in these pro tournaments prior to her to start of her NCAA career.
“It’s really good to be back here, getting a lot of matches before I go to college, which is what I need,” said Ahn, who also plans to play the next two weeks on the SoCal Pro Series in Rancho Santa Fe and Lakewood. “In these tournaments, the seeds don’t really mean that much. But I am feeling like I am putting a little more pressure on myself to win.”
In Saturday afternoon’s women’s doubles final, Ukrainian Anita Sahdiieva will attempt to win a third consecutive SoCal Pro Series crown with a third partner as she teams with University of San Diego rising junior and Panorama City resident Kristina Nordikyan to match up against USC junior-to-be Lily Fairclough and her Australian teammate, Lily Taylor (last week’s SoCal Pro Series women’s singles champ).
Sahdiieva and Nordikyan ousted Thea Frodin, the Junior starlet from Woodland Hills, and Pacific Palisades native Lexi Wolf, 6-4, 6-4, in a Friday semifinal. 2025 SoCal Pro Series Week 1 doubles finalists Fairclough and Taylor knocked off top-seeded San Diegan Haley Giavara and Loyola Marymount graduate student Veronika Miroshnichenko, 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 (10-point, third-set tiebreaker) in the other semifinal, ending Giavara’s bid for an 11th ITF doubles title.
Pacific Beach native and SMU ace Trevor Svajda, making a 2025 SoCal Pro Series cameo this week, advanced to his second consecutive semifinal on this circuit after eliminating former University of Michigan standout Andrew Fenty, 6-3, 6-4.
Svajda, 19, arrived home from the college season to stay at home with his family. He is mostly passing through before he resumes his 2025 schedule where he has mostly featured on the ATP Challenger Tour.
In fact, February saw Svajda receive a wild card into the main draw of the Dallas Open (ATP 500 tournament) and achieve a quarterfinal berth at the San Diego Open (ATP 100 Challenger event) before losing to ATP top-100 player and former UCLA Bruin Mackie McDonald.
“My game is feeling very good,” Svajda said. “The serve is improving – first serve and second serve. That’s been the biggest part for me. It’s got to get bigger.”
Beyond the SoCal Pro Series, Svajda hopes to improve on his Challenger Tour results and, wishfully, is hoping to catch the attention of the USTA toward perhaps earning a qualifying wild card into the US Open, like he did in 2023.
In his last SoCal Pro Series event, 51 weeks ago, Svajda dropped a semifinal to Learner Tien at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club. He’s not necessarily inspired by Tien’s ensuing rise onto the ATP Tour and his current top-70 world ranking since that match, but Svajda knows the SoCal Pro Series can serve as a catalyst to help springboard him to greater heights.
“What he did (in the SoCal Pro Series) was pretty unbelievable, with his record,” Svajda said of Tien winning all four SoCal Pro Series events he played last year. “But you get just a jump of confidence from one tournament, and anyone can just keep rolling through every single tournament. You’ve seen it with Learner and Nishesh (Basavareddy). Not many people are far off.
“Everyone has their own path. I try not to compare. I know my time will come.”
A casual observer of the men’s singles draw could easily be mistaken to interpret Saturday’s men’s singles and doubles action for a USD intrasquad scrimmage.
The Toreros’ European triumvirate of Englishman Oliver Tarvet, Dutchman Stian Klaassen and Savriyan Danilov, a native of Moscow, won quarterfinals on their home courts on Friday, showing off the strength of a USD men’s team which completed the 2024-25 college season No. 9 in the ITA’s NCAA Division I rankings with a 25-4 record and hoisted a fourth consecutive West Coast Conference championship.
Last week’s SoCal Pro Series singles champion within the friendly confines of USD, Tarvet ran his all-time SoCal Pro Series record to 13-0 there after his opponent, fellow Brit Toby Samuel, retired with injury with Tarvet leading 7-5, 4-4.
Tarvet, 21, will prepare for his blockbuster semifinal against Svajda with the confidence of not having lost a singles match at USD since March 17, 2023, when he fell to Princeton’s Thomas Bosancic during his freshman season.
Klaassen, who returns as a senior to the Toreros lineup next school year, was living on the edge in his matchup with University of Oregon product and No. 8 seed Quinn Vandecasteele before rallying for a 2-6, 7-6 (8), 6-3 triumph.
Danilov, a graduate student player with the Toreros this past season, dispatched third-seeded San Diegan Alafia Ayeni, 6-4, 6-4. Danilov, an ITF Futures singles and doubles champion prior to moving to San Diego, faces Klaassen, 22, in Saturday’s opening semifinal at 10 a.m. Danilov, 25, was the men’s singles runner-up in the 2025 SoCal Pro Series opener two weeks ago at Barnes Tennis Center.
Hours after Klaassen and Danilov duel on Saturday for a berth in Sunday’s singles final, they will regroup together to compete for a SoCal Pro Series doubles title in an afternoon final. The unseeded duo blitzed Rancho Santa Fe native Jacob Brumm and Ohio State star Jack Anthrop, 6-2, 6-4, on Friday.
Klaassen and Danilov will meet second-seeded Americans Keshav Chopra and Phillip Jordan (formerly of UC Santa Barbara and North Carolina), who defeated Vandecasteele and Strong Kirchheimer, 6-2, 7-6 (2), in Friday’s other semifinal.
Remaining 2025 SoCal Pro Series tournament schedule
- 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
