LOS ANGELES, July 7, 2025 (by Steve Pratt)
The first thing Kyle Kang wanted to do after winning his first professional tennis title was hug his mother Aeri, who was brought to tears by her son’s stunning display of shot-making in a 7-5, 6-4 upset of top-seeded Australian Dane Sweeny in the singles final of the USTA SoCal Pro Series Los Angeles event Sunday afternoon at Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates.
“I’m his personal Uber driver,” Aeri joked while Kyle signed autographs for a line of ball kids after receiving his first-place medal. Following the customary post-match handshake, Kang walked to the edge of the court and leaned over the fence to embrace his proud mom.
“Tournament-wise this is one of my biggest victories, yeah,” said Kang, who played primarily at No. 2 singles as a sophomore at Stanford in the spring. “I’ve gotten to a couple finals of 15s and 25s but this is the first time I’ve won.”
He will try to make it two in a row in the seventh and final Series event (qualifying begins Monday) at San Diego State, but he will take a night to savor a well-earned victory that tested his mental and physical stamina.
“It’s always fun playing in front of a lot of people and I wanted to give it my all no matter what,” said Kang, who broke his opponent’s serve to start the match and solidified the break, only to lose the next five games. “He moves so well it’s tough to get the ball by him, so I came to the net more. I figured if he can reel off five in a row, I can too.”
He did just that, ending the first set with a clean forehand passing shot. The No. 3 seed broke again to open the second set and surrendered a mere 13 points in his last five service games.
Sweeny had looked practically unbeatable through the first four rounds, never dropping more than three games in any set. On Saturday, he swept UC Irvine’s Noah Zamora in the semifinals 6-3, 6-1, avenging a loss two weeks earlier in the Series’ fourth event at Rancho Santa Fe.
“When you get this far you want to go all the way,” Zamora said. “I didn’t hit my backhand as well as the last time and he changed things up and played me how I don’t like to be played. Hopefully I can turn this into more deep runs.”
Meanwhile, Kang had to survive a pair of three-setters (including three tiebreakers) en route to the championship match and even his 6-4, 6-2 semifinal victory over UC Santa Barbara’s Dominique Rolland proved to be a struggle.
“We’re both from the same area [Southern California] so I’ve known him growing up,” said Kang, a Fullerton native. “It was closer than the score. When I got up 4-0 he had nothing to lose and I lost my concentration for a few games, but I was able to hold on to win that set.”
In his endearing Down Under accent, Sweeny thanked the Kramer Club crowd for pumping him up during his matches.
“I’m excited for what’s to come,” the 24-year-old from Sunshine Coast in Queensland said. “I may be playing Challengers this time next year but if not I’d like to come back.”
Veronika Miroshnichenko let out a scream and clenched her fist upon capturing the women’s singles title Sunday with a 6-2, 6-3 triumph over Kylie Collins and afterwards she took a celebratory dip in the pool with the ball kids, shouting “1… 2… 3… champions!” as she jumped.
It was the 27-year-old qualifier’s first pro title since winning the ITF World Tennis Tour W60 Pelham Pro Classic in Alabama in May 2023, only a week after her graduation from Loyola Marymount University.
“I came through qualifying so I had to play two extra matches this week,” said Miroshnichenko, a Moscow native who now resides in Orange County and missed most of the 2024 circuit due to injury. “Today, I broke Kylie’s serve early and that gave me a lot of confidence. How am I going to celebrate? Just go home and rest.”
The match resembled the players’ previous encounter in the first round of a W35 in January in Arcadia when Miroshnichenko prevailed, 6-4, 6-2. She upset former USC All-American and No. 1-seeded Eryn Cayetano in three sets in the quarterfinals and ousted incoming USC freshman Krisha Mahendran in the semifinals, 6-2, 6-3.
“I was trying to keep her moving and keep the balls deep but she played really well… sometimes you have to clap your hands for the other player,” said Mahendran, who lives up the road in Rancho Palos Verdes. “This is the first time I’ve won a match in the main draw so I’m super proud of myself. I’m playing SDSU next week and it’s a fresh slate. Just like I did here, I’ll take it one match at a time.”
Collins, fresh off helping Oklahoma State to the NCAA quarterfinals as a graduate student, did not leave the Southland empty-handed however. On Saturday, she and Ukrainian Anita Sahdiieva claimed the doubles title with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over UCLA’s Olivia Center and Sophia Webster of Vanderbilt.
Sahdiieva paired with Australian Stefani Webb to win the Kramer Club title last year and Saturday’s result marked her third Series doubles title of 2025. She won the first Series stop (May 26-June 1) at Barnes Tennis Center with Cal alum Hailey Giavara and won again the following week with Australian Lily Fairclough at the University of San Diego.
Center played with fellow freshman Kate Fakih throughout the college season but when Fakih opted to play only singles this week Center welcomed the opportunity to reunite with Webster, who was born and raised in El Segundo and, ironically, saw her freshman year with the Commodores come to an end in the NCAA Regional finals against UCLA (though the two played different positions for their respective teams and therefore did not face each other). But interestingly enough, the Bruins are coached by Webster’s mother Stella Sampras-Webster and her uncle is all-time great Pete Sampras.
“We’ve been good friends for awhile and we played a lot of junior events together,” said Webster, who had to leave for the airport right after the awards presentation to catch a flight back to Nashville. “It was fun to play with Olivia again.”
Center, who led her San Marino High team to back-to-back CIF titles before joining the UCLA program and helping the Bruins reach the Super Regionals in May, partnered with Webster to claim the Girls’ 18 doubles championship at the 2024 Easter Bowl in San Diego.
“Sophia plays different from Kate but no I didn’t adapt how I play,” Center said. “We’re both pretty aggressive. I felt a little unfamiliar at first because I’m so used to playing with Kate and I know what shots she’s going to hit. We were trying to control the net but they kept their level of play high and it was tough to match it.”
Five of the 16 games were decided via the winner-take-all deuce point and Collins/Sahdiieva won four of them, but Center does not mind no-ad scoring for doubles in Series events.
“It’s tough on days like today when it doesn’t go in your favor,” she said. “On the other hand it makes matches a lot shorter.”
Top-seeded Phillip Jordan and Keshav Chopra did not drop one set in four matches en route to the men’s doubles crown, capped by Saturday’s 6-4, 6-2 triumph over No. 2 Govind Nanda (who notched 53 singles wins and 48 doubles wins in his UCLA career) and 27-year-old Jamie Vance from Denver in the finals.
“As far as partners I try to pick someone I have good chemistry with,” the 23-year-old Chopra said. “We’ve known each other since Juniors. We’ve played quite a few tournaments. I always play the same side of the court.”
“We feed off each other’s energy, we think similarly and our styles mesh,” the 24-year-old Jordan added. “We like to hit a lot of return winners. We make it happen together.”
It was the duo’s second Pro Series title of 2025. They also teamed up to win the second event in San Diego, beating Russian Savriyan Danilov and Dutchman Stian Klaassen 6-2, 7-5 in the final.
MATCH OF THE WEEK: Stanford’s Kyle Kang and UCLA’s Emon van Loren Sels traded groundstrokes for four hours and 15 minutes before Kang, who saved a pair of match points in the second set, prevailed 6-7(6), 7-6(7), 6-4, in a first-round marathon Wednesday. Kang went on to win four more matches to capture his first Series singles title.
Remaining 2025 SoCal Pro Series tournament schedule
– July 7-13 – San Diego State University, San Diego
