Former Junior World #1 Kaylan Bigun Wins SoCal
Pro Series Main Draw Debut San Diego State

UCSB’s Gianluca Brunkow, Dominique Rolland and Lucca Liu Move Into Second Round of Singles; Santa Barbara Native Kayla Day, a WTA Top-100 Player in 2024, Wins in First Round in Women’s Singles

The SoCal Pro Series has arrived at San Diego State University’s Aztec Tennis Center for the first time as it prepares to close the books on the fourth year of its influential and impactful Southern California swing of International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour and USTA Pro Circuit tournaments this week.

While San Diego State’s tennis program has rolled out the Aztec-red carpet for its chance to host professional tennis on campus, UCLA Bruins past and present may have the strength in numbers to crash its party.

UCLA graduate and top-seeded San Diegan Keegan Smith, along with returning Bruins junior Spencer Johnson and sophomore Kaylan Bigun, all won first-round men’s singles matches in the $15,000-purse Futures tournament.

Smith (No. 497 ATP ranking), who won the singles title at the first 2025 SoCal Pro Series tournament at Barnes Tennis Center, returned for this week’s final tournament of the SoCal Pro Series after a foot injury sidelined him for the past month. He rallied to defeat Ryan Dickerson, 6-7(5), 7-6(4), 6-1 on Wednesday. Ladera Ranch resident Johnson, who began the year as UCLA’s No. 1 singles player, eliminated No. 3 seed Jacob Brumm, of Rancho Santa Fe, in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, on Tuesday.

The arrival of Bigun, 19, onto the SoCal Pro Series, albeit for the series’ concluding event of the year, has been much anticipated. The left-hander from Los Angeles lost to his teammate, Johnson, in the final round of qualifying two weeks ago at Lakewood but this week earned the No. 8 seed into the main draw, where he opened with a 6-3, 6-3 triumph over Castaic native and BYU rising senior Adam Chodur on Tuesday.

“I feel like it’s a good tournament, close to home — it’s only a few hours driving — and tons of good players,” Bigun said. “I would’ve played more of them. It’s just that I was sick towards the end of school. I was out for a few weeks. I think these ones are really good and they’re really deep. SoCal, in general, has a lot of good tennis and most of those players come here. Just from the top guys in SoCal, you’ve seen, kind of, the guys who have broken into the (ATP) top 100 in the last year, they’ve all played these tournaments. I think it’s definitely a good stepping stone and you can build lots of momentum here and get great competition as well.”

It’s been a wildly successful past 18 months for Bigun, who was a Big Ten All-Freshman Team selection this past school year and contributed to the Bruins’ 2025 Big Ten Tournament championship and a 2025 NCAA Division I Dual Team quarterfinal run from the No. 3 singles slot.

Bigun wrapped up his junior tennis career in 2024 by playing in the Boys singles championships of all four Grand Slams, reaching the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open — while also winning a round of mixed doubles at the US Open with Torrance’s tennis starlet, Iva Jovic — and spectacularly ascending to No. 1 in the ITF World Junior Rankings following his Roland Garros Boys singles championship 13 months ago.

Said Bigun: “It was a great experience and it was kind of a full-circle moment for me in my junior career. The French (Open) was a great journey and a great week. Just seeing my coaches, the USTA and my family just so happy. We put in a lot of work on the red clay. It was really special for me and my family. My grandparents still have pictures up on their fridge.

“It was always the plan to go to UCLA and to play under Billy Martin. I live 15 to 20 minutes from UCLA. It’s always been a place that it’s such a cool school and a lot of my friends are there. I had a blast. My teammates were unreal. It was a really special season. It’s a different feeling with a team because you’re doing it with your boys and the competition is so intense.

“If I look at it as a team, it was a lot of fun winning Big Ten and doing so good for UCLA. If you look at it individually, obviously the French was a great accomplishment. I try not to dwell on it too much. Enjoy them and take the confidence and take the good memories and carry that with me. It’s just that when you play week after week, you’re only worried about the next week.”

UC Santa Barbara also has three representatives in the second round of men’s singles in the recently graduated Gianluca Brunkow, Dominique Rolland, and Lucca Liu, who played in the Nos. 1-3 slots for the Gauchos, respectively, this past NCAA season.

Rolland and Liu gained their first ATP ranking points in Week 1 at Barnes Tennis Center, and Topanga resident Brunkow, a 2025 All-Big West First Team selection in singles and doubles, achieved that same feat Wednesday by dispatching UCLA ace and Thousand Oaks native Rudy Quan, 6-3, 6-2.

“It feels about as good as it can feel. It’s always been my goal to get ATP points and play professional tennis. So now that I finally got my first point, it feels really special. It really feels like the start of something that I can keep doing,” said Brunkow, a qualifier playing in only his third ITF men’s pro main draw this week after losing first-round matches on the SoCal Pro Series in Lakewood in 2022 and 2023. “My last college match ever, actually, I played Rudy at NCAAs (Dual Team tournament first round on May 2) and I was up 1-0 in the third (set), unfinished. And so I kind of felt like I had unfinished business against him. It felt really good to play him today.”

Brunkow, 22, and Rolland, 20, face each other in Thursday’s second round. It should make for interesting banter as they are rooming together this week. It all adds to the invaluable SoCal Pro Series opportunity Brunkow is grateful to have.

Said Brunkow: “I love it. You finish school, you get to stay in your own backyard. Normally you can get free housing around here. Bruce Kleege has done a great job. I’m actually staying with him, and a couple of my buddies (Rolland and Liu). He’s really helped us out, really lowering the expense and just making it really easy for us to start our pro careers. I think it’s great and I really hope it keeps on going.”

Rolland overwhelmed USC outgoing senior Karl Lee, 6-3, 6-2, on Tuesday. Rolland has played seven straight weeks on the SoCal Pro Series. Rolland has gone on to reach a semifinal (losing to eventual champion Kyle Kang last week at Jack Kramer Club) and a quarterfinal, and he has lost to the top seed in three of those tournaments.

Liu, 21, won his first-round match for the fourth time in the five SoCal Pro Series events he has played, rolling to a 6-3, 6-2 victory on Wednesday over Matthew Shearer, of New Zealand. Liu meets Johnson in Thursday’s second round.

Johnson missed 10 weeks, from early February to mid-April, with a stress fracture in his left elbow but has appeared to regain something near his top form, evidenced by him reaching his first ITF men’s final two weeks ago, when he lost to Pacific Beach’s Trevor Svajda in the SoCal Pro Series event at Lakewood Tennis Center.

“That’s one of the best weeks I’ve put together. That was cool,” Johnson said. “I think it gave me a lot of confidence because I got through a lot of tight situations in those matches and I was able to get through them. It made me more excited to keep playing. It’s awesome that we can play these (tournaments). I’ve only played 15Ks ($15,000 purse Futures) here but people tell me they’re pretty deep. There are a lot of good players here that are saying that. A lot of guys stick around and play these. It’s helped me a lot. I think everyone’s super grateful that we can play these in SoCal.”

Fourth-seeded Kang, Stanford’s rising junior from Fullerton, followed up his maiden professional singles title on Sunday at Jack Kramer Club with a 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3 first-round win over UCLA’s Aadarsh Tripathi on Wednesday.

The women’s singles draw finds the unexpected, but welcomed, presence of Santa Barbara native Kayla Day as the top seed in her SoCal Pro Series debut. Two weeks removed from competing in Wimbledon’s qualifying stages, Day breezed by Laguna Beach’s Kelly Keller, 6-3, 6-3, on Tuesday.

Fifteen months ago, Day (current No. 463 WTA ranking) held a career-best WTA ranking of No. 84. But she played all of 2024 with a pinched nerve in her right ankle that eventually required surgery to the joint in December. She was sidelined for nearly seven months, from October 2024 until she returned to the court at the end of April.

Day competed in qualifying at all of last year’s Grand Slams, and this is her first Futures-15 tournament among the eight events she has entered since coming back from injury.

“Hoping to get some matches right in my backyard,” said Day, who still has ties to Santa Barbara despite her having moved to Dallas. “Probably the thing that I’m still lacking is my match fitness. You can practice as much as you want but I feel like you can’t really replicate the nerves and emotions of playing a match. I haven’t had the string of matches that I would’ve liked. Which is what I’m hoping for this week. I’ve always played my best when I’ve got a lot of matches in a row and I feel like I’m in the groove of things. I feel like I’m getting there.

“I’m feeling good physically, which is the number one. I’m playing pain-free, which has felt like ages. I’m really just happy to be here. I’m hoping that if I just keep going, I’ll find my form again. Now after playing seven events, I’m like ‘Okay, it feels good. I trust myself.’ Which is such a nice feeling.”

In a duel of recent San Diego County high school graduates and Barnes Tennis Center pupils, Stanford-bound San Diegan Alyssa Ahn saved a match point against at 3-5 in the third set and outlasted Fallbrook resident and Georgia recruit Emily Deming, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6(4), in the week’s longest match to date – about three hours, 40 minutes.

“We’ve grown up (together). Before Barnes, we also trained somewhere else together. We’ve played many doubles tournaments together, too,” said No. 4 seed Ahn of Deming. Ahn also beat Deming in the first round of the SoCal Pro Series Week 2 event at the University of San Diego.

Added Ahn: “We’re very close so it sucks to have to play her. This marathon match wasn’t my best tennis but it’s one of the most rewarding to get through because I was able to hang in there. I was down a match point, and then it’s always tough playing a friend. Huge credit to Emily. I think she played some really good tennis. Looking at the draw, just unfortunate. You know, one of you guys are losing first round. Obviously, I don’t want that for my friend. But I also don’t want that for myself.”

Canadian Bianca Jolie Fernandez, UCLA’s rising junior and the sister of WTA star Leylah Fernandez, enjoyed a comfortable 6-4, 6-2 victory over Sophie Suh, of Orange, on Wednesday.

San Diego State senior-to-be Jo-Yee Chan, who finished the 2024-25 NCAA season as the No. 2 player in the Aztecs’ lineup, was victorious in her first-round singles and doubles matches. She ousted No. 6 seed and early Georgia commit Bella Payne, 7-6(4), 6-2, in singles a day after she partnered with the University of Arizona’s Teja Tirunelveli to eke out a wild 6-3, 2-6, 16-14 (10-point tiebreaker) win over Santa Monica native Simone Kay and Palm Desert native Patsy Daughters.

Aztec hopes are still alive in the men’s doubles draw as well as returning senior Eugenio Gonzalez Fitzmaurice teamed with fellow San Diegan and returning Harvard junior Rohan Murali to cruise past San Diegan and UC Irvine recruit Alexander Guajardo and Long Beach’s Nav Dayal, 6-2, 6-0, on Tuesday.

Chan and Fitzmaurice have had this week marked on their calendar since the beginning of the SoCal Pro Series and have a lot of pride in wanting to put their best foot forward on their school’s familiar courts.

They were both awarded singles main draw wild cards this week by USTA Southern California and hope to benefit from any home court advantages, from the faster surface they are accustomed to playing here to enjoying the comfort and support of being within friendly confines.

“It’s a little more special because it’s at home,” Chan said. “It’s really cool to have everyone around the country, and international players, come and play at our courts. I wanted to make sure I was healthy to play for this one. I have my internship (at the SDSU Athletic department) right now that I’m working. I took this week off to play this tournament. We had people from the department come and watch my doubles match.”

Chan is nursing a minor injury that would have kept her from playing this week if the event were anywhere else but the Aztec Tennis Center. She took off the SoCal Pro Series’ two-week LA swing, and Fitzmaurice hasn’t played the series since the opener at Barnes Tennis Center, in order to stay local and train here in anticipation of the school’s inaugural hosting of a SoCal Pro Series tournament.

“I took the rest of the weeks off to practice, specifically for this one. I knew I was going to be playing at home. I knew I was going to have the main draw wild card,” said Fitzmaurice, the Aztecs’ ace who grew up in Chula Vista and believes San Diego State hosting a SoCal Pro Series tournament is “a big step, in general, for the whole program.”

He added: “It was something I was really waiting for. Playing home. Playing the court I played – Court 4 – the whole year. Not only playing the same courts, in general, where I practice at but this place, in general, every day for the last three years. I’m going full-on. Also, I’ve already met two of the new guys that are coming in. Women’s side, as well, I’ve already met two new girls (recruits), who are also here for the tournament. It’s a good thing.”

Fitzmaurice and Murali match up against second-seeded brothers Jayson and Michael Blando, San Diego residents and graduates of Rancho Bernardo High School and the University of Utah, in Thursday’s second round. The Blando twins edged Pepperdine alum and Santa Barbara native Stefan Menichella and Rolling Hills Estates’ Kyle Overmyer, 7-5, 7-6(7), in another first-round match on Tuesday.

Players to Watch

Savriyan Danilov – The 25-year-old University of San Diego graduate student from Moscow cruised to a 6-2, 6-4 first-round victory over Nathan Ponwith. Danilov reached the final of the 2025 SoCal Pro Series opener at Barnes Tennis Center and made the semifinals in Week 3 at USD. Tough to buck the good karma and good vibes of the Toreros’ tennis program in the wake of 2025 SoCal Pro Series Week 2 champion Oliver Tarvet and August Holmgren, 2022 SoCal Pro Series champ and 2022 NCAA Division I singles runner-up to Ben Shelton, advancing to the second and third round of Wimbledon, respectively. Perhaps Tarvet, who is back in San Diego a week after soaking in the tennis experience of his life that culminated with a second-round clash versus World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz on Centre Court at Wimbledon, will provide support and inspiration for Danilov.

Tianmei Wang – The 18-year-old San Marino High School graduate and San Marino native who enrolls at Stanford in a couple months defeated Zoe Hammond, 6-3, 6-4, in the first round and has become increasingly comfortable on the ITF women’s pro stage. She has semifinal and quarterfinal results in two of her last three SoCal Pro Series events and has as good a chance as any in the bottom half of the draw to make a deep run.

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