Eryn Cayetano Nets Women’s Singles and Doubles
Titles at SoCal Pro Series in Rancho Santa Fe

University of Michigan Product Andrew Fenty Gains First ITF Singles Crown; UCLA’s Aadarsh Tripathi Wins First ITF Pro Title in Men’s Doubles

Returning to tournament tennis in Southern California for the first time in nearly four months this past week at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club brought Eryn Cayetano a reassured feeling of comfort and normalcy. She channeled those good vibes to create a familiar winning experience at the SoCal Pro Series, even if the road leading back to the winner’s stage this weekend was anything but.

The No. 2 seed and 2023 USC graduate tamed 17-year-old twins this weekend, breezing by Avery Nguyen, 6-1, 6-0, in Saturday’s semifinal before garnering the SoCal Pro Series-Week 4 women’s singles championship with a 6-7(6), 6-2, 6-0 triumph over No. 4 seed Alexis Nguyen in Sunday’s final of the $15,000-purse tournament on the USTA Pro Circuit and International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour.

Five-time ITF singles champion Cayetano, 24, admitted the oddity of facing a pair of high school-aged twins separately in a 24-hour span over the final stages of the tournament did cross her mind and had her feeling like a seasoned veteran by comparison.

Cayetano, who was raised in Corona and Long Beach (Saint Anthony High School) and is currently residing in Los Angeles, had never before faced the Nguyen twins, from El Dorado Hills in the greater-Sacramento area. Both have one year of high school remaining and are committed to play college tennis at North Carolina for the 2026-27 school year.

“It was like I’m seeing double,” Cayetano joked. “For me, it’s just trying to block it out and trying to be present. I definitely think experience has helped a lot. I’ve played girls that are 15, 16 years old and could hit just as hard, just as well, as me. They proved that today and yesterday. Age is just a number. If LeBron James can play at 40-something and he’s keeping up with these 20-year-olds …”

In between those matches, Cayetano capped off a perfect week in Rancho Santa Fe as she and her former Trojans teammate, Lily Fairclough, teamed up as the No. 3 seed in doubles and captured Saturday’s final, 6-3, 7-5, over No. 4 seeds Anita Sahdiieva, a six-time SoCal Pro Series doubles champion from Ukraine, and Canadian Scarlett Nicholson.

It marked Cayetano’s eighth ITF doubles title, and her fifth in the last nine months. Fairclough, the 19-year-old Australian and rising junior at USC, is returning home Down Under and wrapped up her 2025 SoCal Pro Series stint by winning the doubles championship each of the past three weeks with three different partners.

Cayetano and Fairclough tallied 15 WTA doubles ranking points each and split a $955 winner’s check. Sahdiieva and Nicholson received 10 WTA doubles ranking points each and split a $515 runner-up prize.

Within the singles ledger, Cayetano gained 15 WTA world ranking points and a $2,352 prize, while Nguyen received 10 WTA world ranking points and a $1,470 runner-up share. Nguyen (No. 716 WTA singles ranking) was a 6-4, 6-2 semifinal winner over Stanford-bound San Diegan Alyssa Ahn on Saturday to reach her first ITF women’s singles final.

Cayetano (No. 478 WTA singles ranking) is the winningest player in SoCal Pro Series history among those who have won crowns in singles and doubles. She has won two singles and three doubles championships on the SoCal Pro Series.

“That’s a cool stat to know. It think it goes to show how much (the SoCal Pro Series) means to me and, I guess, how comfortable I feel being at home,” Cayetano said. “Playing the SoCal Pro Series is such a great opportunity. It means everything to me.

“Being on the road for most of the year can get pretty tough. I can get, kind of, homesick. Playing here makes a huge difference for me, and also the players who are from (Southern California).”

In 2022, Cayetano won SoCal Pro Series singles and doubles crowns on the same weekend at the Jack Kramer Club (Rolling Hills Estates), beating American teenage sensation Iva Jovic in the singles final. She added another doubles title on the SoCal Pro Series in 2023.

Having left college tennis behind and now touring the ITF circuit regularly, Cayetano’s globetrotting in 2025 has taken her across the U.S. and abroad to Georgia, Egypt and Tunisia, where she also won the $15,000 Futures singles and doubles championships on the same weekend in March.

Said Cayetano: “What has changed for me is just my mentality. I also think my game has changed and matured in many ways. Being on tour has taught me how to manage my time more, and also (manage myself) mentally and physically and maintaining my happiness on and off the court.”

Cayetano lost a 4-1 first-set lead and saved four set points consecutively after trailing 6-2 in the first-set tiebreaker. But she then proceeded to make two unforced errors – hitting one ball wide and hitting the decisive set point into the net to give Nguyen the tiebreak, 8-6. That’s when Cayetano made an adjustment in mentality and strategy.

Said Cayetano: “She started to hit her targets really well. She was ripping in the tiebreaker and was going for her shots. Literally nothing that I could have done better in the tiebreaker. I was playing a lot on my back leg. That was the adjustment in the second and third (set), is I was hitting through and stepping into balls. Being more aggressive.”

Cayetano concludes her abbreviated 2025 SoCal Pro Series stay this upcoming week at Lakewood Tennis Center, and she will play doubles with 10-time ITF doubles champion Haley Giavara, of San Diego. Cayetano and Giavara are likely the top singles seeds.

Sunday’s men’s singles final featured an Ohio State-Michigan theme as 2023 Michigan graduate Andrew Fenty, 25, rallied from a set and a break down in the second set to win his first ITF singles crown, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, against Buckeyes returning senior Jack Anthrop. Fenty recalls beating Anthrop in three sets in their only other meeting in the college fall season in 2022.

Said Fenty: “It’s crazy, man. I can’t believe it. It won’t soak in until weeks from now. I would’ve never thought I was going to win. This is a whole new level of Andrew Fenty. I’ve been training hard and pushing. Just sticking with it and believing. I won the battle versus myself today.”

Washington D.C. native and Miami resident Fenty, the winningest player in the history of Michigan’s tennis program, collected 15 ATP singles ranking points and a $2,160 winner’s prize. Anthrop received eight ATP ranking points and a $1,272 check as runner-up.

Anthrop reached his third ITF/USTA Pro Circuit final in downing UCLA ace and Thousand Oaks native Rudy Quan, 6-2, 6-3, in a Saturday semifinal. Fenty advanced to his first ITF men’s singles final in eliminating Fullerton native and Stanford rising junior Kyle Kang, 6-3, 6-4, in Saturday’s other semifinal.

Fenty has played the first four weeks on the SoCal Pro Series with plans to play the next two in Los Angeles County. He is sold on the quality and depth of competition and the benefits of the series in the Southland.

“I really love it here,” Fenty said. “It’s like a cage match. You got to go through killers. You got to go through champions. You got to go through (NCAA) All-Americans. You got to go through tough as nails, gritty (players) every match. It’s really tough but I really like the pain, if that makes sense. I was already happy with the week matches ago. Every win was a great win. That’s how good these tournaments are.

“The great thing about the SoCal Pro Series is that it’s every week (for seven straight weeks). I’ve learned so much from week to week. If you can take losses and comprehend them, it will really help because there’s no bad players here. I’m getting the best matches.”

In Saturday’s men’s doubles final, UCLA returning senior and 2025 ITA Men’s Doubles All-American Aadarsh Tripathi, 21, and fellow Northern Californian Theo Dean, a 2024 Yale University graduate, won their first ITF professional titles in defeating fourth-seeded Strong Kirchheimer and Englishman Finn Bass, 6-1, 7-6(5).

Tripathi and Dean earned 15 ATP doubles ranking points each and split a $930 champion’s prize, while runners-up Kirchheimer and Bass collected eight ATP doubles ranking points each and split a $540 check.

Match of the Week

Men’s Doubles, First Round – William Kleege/Johannes Seeman d. Andrei Crabel/Emon van Loben Sels, 6-7(7), 7-6(0), 10-8

The future and past of the San Diego State tennis program conquered present-day UCLA teammates in a match that couldn’t have been much tighter. It was the fourth ITF men’s doubles victory (all achieved on the SoCal Pro Series) for San Diego native and recent Torrey Pines High School graduate Kleege, who enrolls at San Diego State in the fall. Seeman, a three-time ITF men’s doubles champion from Estonia, finished up his Aztecs career and graduated last year. Crabel, from Beverly Hills, and van Loben Sels just finished their freshman and sophomore seasons, respectively, with the Bruins.

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