Kayla Day Continues Comeback, with Eye Towards US
Open, by Reaching Weekend at SoCal Pro Series

Future Stanford Teammates Alyssa Ahn and Tianmei Wang Join Day in Semis; Men’s Singles Semifinals to Include UCLA Graduate Keegan Smith, Current Bruin Spencer Johnson, and UCSB’s Gianluca Brunkow

Typically not one to play at the entry level of professional tournament tennis anymore, Kayla Day viewed her SoCal Pro Series tournament entry this week at San Diego State University’s Aztec Tennis Center twofold.

Her first, and likely only, SoCal Pro Series participation is meant to be a brief Southern California homecoming which also serves as another step in her injury comeback and a kickstart to a summer season that ends at Flushing Meadows for US Open qualifying in late August.

The 25-year-old Santa Barbara native has turned her SoCal Pro Series cameo into advancing to her first tournament semifinal in nine-and-a-half months after coasting past Midori Castillo-Meza, 6-2, 6-2, in Friday’s women’s singles quarterfinals of the $15,000-purse event on the ITF World Tennis Tour and USTA Pro Circuit.

Day (No. 463 WTA ranking) held a career-best WTA ranking of No. 84 in April 2024, while playing regularly on the WTA and Challenger tours. Day reached the third round of the French Open in 2023. In 2024, Day competed in the main draw at the Australian Open and French Open and the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, among other WTA events, and also in the qualifying stages at Wimbledon and the US Open.

However, Day played all of 2024 with a pinched nerve in her right ankle that eventually required surgery in December. She was out of tournament action for nearly seven months, from October 2024 until the end of April, and her ranking dropped off with inactivity.

This week’s 2025 SoCal Pro Series finale is Day’s eighth tournament of the year since returning to the court, and only the time in which she has advanced beyond the second round. Her initial goal in playing what will likely be her only $15,000 Futures event of the year was to collect as much match-play as she could to improve her conditioning and match fitness, rather than goal-setting to attain a specific result.

But if she could maximize her objective, it would put her in a position for a sixth ITF pro singles championship. She last won in 2023, when she bagged two Challenger Tour 100-level events.

“A title would be super nice,” Day said. “I don’t need it. I want it. I definitely want it.”

Day, who was 16 when she won the 2016 USTA Girls’ 18s National Championship (singles) at Barnes Tennis Center to earn a US Open main draw wild card and win her first-round match that year, has not surrendered more than three games in any of her straight-set victories through the first three rounds.

Two weeks removed from a first-round defeat in Wimbledon’s qualifying stage, Day knows the injury comeback is a process. She isn’t dealing with any residual pain and has cleared the mental block of playing cautiously on her ankle.

Her protected ranking assures her of participation in the few Challenger events and US Open qualifying that she has earmarked for the rest of the summer.

“Of course, I believe I can get back in the top 100 (of the WTA rankings), even higher,” Day said. “I think it takes a combination of your level being there, grit, determination and, sort of, going through the grind to get back.”

Southern California is also represented in Saturday’s women’s singles semifinals by San Diegan Alyssa Ahn and San Marino native Tianmei Wang, a pair of 18-year-olds who have played six of the seven 2025 SoCal Pro Series events and will soon be college teammates when they enroll together at Stanford University in the fall.

Day’s semifinal opponent is Ahn, who recently graduated from Torrey Pines High School and is playing her sixth consecutive week on the SoCal Pro Series. No. 4 seed Ahn rallied for 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-1 victory over No. 5 seed Kristina Paskauskas, a North Carolina State rising junior from London, England.

Ahn has reached the semifinals in three of the past four weeks. All that coming off the heels of appearing in her first ITF pro final in Week 3 at the University of San Diego.

“Surprisingly, I’m feeling good,” Ahn said. “In the beginning (of my SoCal Pro Series stint), I had a few injuries but I played through them, and they were very minor. I think I’ve done a good job of taking care of my body throughout the weeks, just to make sure I can keep playing. It’s been a lot of matches.”

Wang, who graduated just over a month ago from San Marino High School, upended second-seeded Ukrainian Anita Sahdiieva, 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, to reach her second semifinal of the 2025 SoCal Pro Series. Wang plays University of Texas-bound No. 3 seed Christasha McNeil, a New Yorker and John McEnroe Tennis Academy pupil, in the first women’s semifinal at 11 a.m. Saturday.

In the men’s singles draw, two of the three quarterfinalists with UCLA ties – San Diegan Keegan Smith and Bruins returning junior and Ladera Ranch resident Spencer Johnson – advanced to Saturday’s semifinals along with Topanga resident Gianluca Brunkow, who just graduated as UC Santa Barbara’s No. 1 player and qualified for his third ITF men’s pro main draw.

Brunkow, 22, ousted last week’s SoCal Pro Series men’s singles champion, fourth-seeded Fullerton native Kyle Kang, 7-5, 3-6, 6-2, in the quarterfinals. It’s rare for one to earn a first ATP ranking point and play on the weekend in the same event but that’s what Brunkow has achieved in his only main draw event on the 2025 SoCal Pro Series.

Said Brunkow: “I never had points and it was really challenging to get in (to the SoCal Pro Series). This summer, I felt like I had the chance of getting wild cards so I signed up for all of them (seven SoCal Pro Series events). And then I injured my wrist, so I literally couldn’t play for three weeks.

“Last week, I got a (SoCal Pro Series qualifying) wild card. Didn’t really take advantage of it, so I kind of felt like I missed out on an opportunity. Luckily, I got another chance this week and qualified. This was, kind of, my last chance. I felt a little bit of pressure, but I took advantage of getting in.”

Brunkow now matches up with top-seeded Smith, a 2017 Point Loma High School graduate and 2019 NCAA Division I men’s doubles champion while at UCLA. Smith (No. 497 ATP ranking), 27, is two wins away from bookending the 2025 SoCal Pro Series with singles titles following Friday’s 6-4, 7-5 victory over No. 8 seed and Bruins returning sophomore Kaylan Bigun, a World Junior No. 1 and French Open boys singles champion in 2024.

Johnson, 22, booked his second consecutive SoCal Pro Series semifinal date, matching his feat at Lakewood Tennis Center two weeks ago, after dominating seventh-seeded University of San Diego graduate student Savriyan Danilov, 6-2, 6-2. Johnson faces No. 2 seed Dane Sweeny, of Australia, on Saturday afternoon. Sweeny dispatched San Diego native and returning Harvard University junior Rohan Murali, 6-4, 6-2, in another quarterfinal.

San Diego State’s last chance for one of its own to be playing on Championship Weekend at the Aztec Tennis Center fell by the wayside Friday as former University of Arizona teammates Castillo-Meza and Brandelyn Fulgenzi edged Aztecs returning senior Jo-Yee Chan and Teja Tirunelveli, 4-6, 6-3, 10-6 (10-point tiebreaker), in a women’s doubles semifinal.

Castillo-Meza, a 21-year-old Tijuana native seeking her first pro title, and Fulgenzi meet No. 2 seed Sahdiieva and Kylie Collins in Saturday’s 10 a.m. final.

Jayson and Michael Blando, San Diego residents and graduates of Rancho Bernardo High School and the University of Utah, advanced to Saturday afternoon’s men’s doubles final after the 23-year-old twins defeated incoming San Diego State recruit Brock Anderson and Rancho Santa Fe resident and Stanford rising junior Hudson Rivera, 6-2, 6-4.

The second-seeded Blandos will meet UCLA’s returning sophomore and No. 1 player Rudy Quan, of Thousand Oaks and his Bruins teammate Emon van Loben Sels, who rolled to a 6-4, 6-3 triumph over Americans Evan Bynoe and Alex Kobelt. All of the doubles finalists are seeking their first ITF pro title.

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