Three Teenagers Reach Women’s Semis Ahead of
Championship Weekend at USD SoCal Pro Series

San Diego State Wildcard Jo-Yee Chan Advances to Semifinals in Her First-Ever ITF World Tour Event as Top Seeds Radanovic and Smith Fall

You could say that New Student Orientation continued on the campus of the University of San Diego on Friday as fresh faces and players from afar continued to make waves on Day 5 of Week 2 at the SoCal Pro Series.

Three teenagers – and two with Northern California ties – moved on with quarterfinal wins on the women’s side on Friday as 17-year-old Aspen Schuman from Menlo Park dominated wildcard Patsy Daughters dropping just one game en route to the semifinals where she will face wildcard Jo-Yee Chan, a San Diego State senior playing in her first-ever ITF World Tennis Tour event.

Chan grew up in Sugar Hill, Ga., and played two years at Oregon before transferring to SDSU. She beat unseeded Marcella Cruz (Vanderbilt/Wake Forest), 7-5, 6-1.

“I honestly was not expecting this at all,” said Chan, who won a pre-qualifying event at Barnes Tennis Center to earn her wildcard this week. “I was a little nervous and played four really good juniors. But I had zero expectations and that just let me play free and with no pressure.”

Chan said she felt her game stagnate at Eugene, choosing the sunnier climes of SoCal and playing for longtime Aztecs Head Coach Peter Mattera and Associate Head Coach Nicolas Vinel. “I kind of needed a fresh start and just felt like my game wasn’t improving,” she said. “I spoke to Coach Nico and we shared the same vision for my game and how I could keep getting better.”

It was just two years ago at just age 15 at this same USD SoCal Pro Series event, the high school senior-to-be Schuman, who is headed to Duke University in 2026, turned heads as a qualifier winning six straight matches to advance to the singles final in just her fourth career ITF pro event where she fell to UCLA’s national champion Fangran Tian.

Meanwhile, 19-year-old UC-Berkeley junior Mao Mushika from Japan set up her semifinal against Australian 18-year-old Lily Taylor from Arizona State as she was the beneficiary of an injury to top-seeded Dejana Radanovic from Serbia. Last week’s SoCal Pro Series singles finalist, Radanovic won the first set, 6-4, but was down 3-1 against the No. 7-seeded Mushika when she was forced to retire due to an injury.

Last week’s doubles winner from Ukraine Anita Sahdiieva (LSU, Baylor University) teamed with last week’s doubles finalist, USC sophomore Lily Fairclough, as the No. 3 seeded team will once again play for the doubles title against Mushika and Kristina Nordikyan, a USD junior from Panorama City.

San Diego’s Keegan Smith had his seven-match SoCal Pro Series winning streak snapped as the Week 1 winner and former NCAA doubles champion from UCLA was beaten by former University of Michigan star Andrew Fenty, 6-3. 6-3.

Fenty will face No. 5 Oliver Tarvet (Great Britain) as the University of San Diego senior took out former Auburn star Tyler Stice, 6-0, 6-2.

For the 25-year-old Fenty, it will be his second ITF career semifinal as he has never advanced to a final. In 2023, Fenty became the winningest player in Michigan program history and finished his career with a record of 228-76. The four-time ITA All-America was the ITA national and Big Ten Conference Rookie of the Year in 2019 and the Big Ten Player of the Year in 2020.

In the other semifinal it will be Alex Kotzen facing No. 7 Leo Vithoontien from Bangkok, Thailand, now representing Japan. Back in 2021 Vithoontien won both the NCAA Division III Singles and Doubles Championships playing for Carleton College in Minnesota. A five-time ITA All-American, he finished his final season ranked No. 1 in the nation in both singles and doubles.

Kotzen is a New York City native who played his college tennis for Columbia and Tennessee.

In the doubles final, unseeded Rhode Island native Matt Kuhar and Vithoontien take on the No. 2 seeded Keshav Chopra (Georgia Tech) and Phillip Jordan (UCSB/Univ. of North Carolina).

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