SAN DIEGO – Trading the red clay of Roland Garros for the more comfortable hardcourts of her native Southern California, Woodland Hills native Thea Frodin made a triumphant return to the SoCal Pro Series in her debut on the 2025 circuit at the University of San Diego.
Frodin, 16, arrived back home to Los Angeles County last weekend and carried over a wave of good form spurred by a month of high-level junior competition in Italy and Paris into a 6-3, 6-2 victory over American Shria Atturu in Tuesday’s first round of the $15,000-purse tournament on the USTA Pro Circuit and International Tennis Federation World Tennis Tour.
Frodin also won a first-round match last week at the French Open’s junior championships, matching her feat from what she did in January at the Australian Open’s junior tournament. She has played in the junior singles event at the past five Grand Slams, beginning with the 2024 Roland Garros Junior Championships.
“I learned a lot the first year (at Roland Garros), and I think my biggest goal was to just come back stronger,” said Frodin, who faces former Norwalk resident and UC Berkeley (Cal) junior-to-be Mao Mushika, the No. 7 seed, in Thursday’s second round. “The experience was fun. The atmosphere was great. The crowd is so good and loud. It’s fun to be in Paris.
“These past tournaments that I’ve played, I’ve learned a lot about myself and my game. Just building confidence. I was a little homesick. I like playing in San Diego, especially in the (SoCal) Pro Series. It’s fun to be here. I want to do better than I did last year. I haven’t won very many matches on the Pro (Series) circuit. Just focused on keeping it simple and trusting my game.”
Frodin is committed to playing next week’s SoCal Pro Series tournament at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club before she begins her grass court preparations ahead of returning to Wimbledon’s junior championships.
San Diegan Haley Giavara entered this week as the top seed in the women’s singles and doubles draws, and her first-round action produced a mixed bag of results. She and her Ukrainian doubles partner, Veronika Miroshnichenko, recorded a 6-4, 6-0 victory on Tuesday over San Marino resident Tianmei Wang and Anita Tu.
The doubles partners found themselves on opposite sides of the court on Wednesday, and qualifier Miroshnichenko, a Loyola Marymount graduate student, pulled off a 6-4, 6-4 upset in Giavara’s singles debut on the 2025 SoCal Pro Series.
Giavara (WTA No. 214 doubles ranking; No. 471 singles ranking), a 2019 Serra High School graduate and Cal-Berkeley graduate, claimed her 10th ITF pro doubles crown in the past two years two weeks ago in Week 1 of the 2025 SoCal Pro Series.
“I was actually going to take the week off the first week (of the SoCal Pro Series),” Giavara said. “My friend (Anita Sahdiieva) asked me to pay doubles, and I was like, ‘Why not?’ I wanted to defend the (SoCal Pro Series-Barnes Tennis Center) title, which was always nice.”
She has one Futures singles title, achieved on the SoCal Pro Series in Irvine in 2023. Although she is a much more accomplished doubles player who has gained some WTA-level experience on the doubles court, the 24-year-old is not ready to resign herself to becoming a doubles specialist and explicitly prioritize doubles over singles.
Said Giavara: “I’ve definitely contemplated it. I definitely have a lot of fun in doubles, but I don’t think I’m at a point yet where I’m going to make that decision. Maybe next year, or see how the rest of this year goes.
“For these (SoCal Pro Series) tournaments, I’m kind of focused on singles, and then doubles is more for fun. Future (summer tournaments), I’m going to look for doubles coming up to try and get up into US Open. I’ve been on the WTA Tour for doubles earlier in the year, so I was trying to stay there and integrate singles more. I’m aiming for some more WTAs (in doubles).”
Elsewhere in the women’s singles draw, a pair of San Diego-based players delivered first-round wins. Coming off her junior season at San Diego State, Jo-Yee Chan overcame Sophie Luescher, 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-2, and will face Miroshnichenko in Round 2.
Sixth-seeded Alyssa Ahn just graduated from Torrey Pines High School and the Stanford-bound teenager notched a 6-1, 7-5 victory over Northern Californian Klara Kosan. In doubles, Ahn also teamed with Fallbrook’s Emily Deming as the No. 3 seed and beat Kosan and her Brazilian partner, Olivia Carneiro, 6-2, 6-0, in the first round.
This week’s men’s singles draw is the strongest and deepest of the first three weeks of this year’s SoCal Pro Series, aided by the strength of the hosting University of San Diego men’s team and the return of more prominent Southern California players.
Last week’s SoCal Pro Series champion at University of San Diego, Oliver Tarvet picked up where he left off from Sunday’s 6-0, 6-0 championship triumph by making quick work of UCSB product Philip Jordan, 6-1, 6-0. It’s remarkable that Tarvet is unseeded this week despite sporting an 11-0 record with two titles when he has played in the SoCal Pro Series on his collegiate home court.
The Toreros’ returning senior and No. 1 player faces top seed and former University of Florida standout Alfredo Perez in Thursday’s second round, and it is difficult to consider USD’s Englishman an underdog in any match this week. Tarvet has not lost a singles match in all competitions at USD since March 17, 2023, when he fell to Princeton’s Thomas Bosancic during his freshman season.
Tarvet, a 2024 and 2025 NCAA All-American, is one of three Toreros playing in Thursday’s Round of 16, joined by two of his fellow European teammates.
Russian Savriyan Danilov, who recently completed the final two years of his college career with the Toreros, upended No. 6 seed and Texas A&M product Noah Schachter, 7-6 (3), 6-3. It shouldn’t be considered much of a surprise given Danilov, a one-time ITF Futures singles and doubles champion, was the singles runner-up 10 days ago in the 2025 SoCal Pro Series opener at Barnes Tennis Center.
USD junior Stian Klaassen, from the Netherlands, defeated Cypress native and lucky loser Christopher Papa, 6-4, 6-4. Papa was inserted into the men’s draw after No. 2 seed Keegan Smith, a San Diego native and 2017 Point Loma High graduate, withdrew from the tournament with a foot injury. Smith, 26, is hopeful of playing in next week’s SoCal Pro Series tournament at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club.
Third-seeded Alafia Ayeni won the first set of his first-round tussle with Poland’s Maciej Rajski, 6-2, before Rajski retired with an injury.
Pacific Beach native Trevor Svajda and Fullerton native Kyle Kang, who just wrapped up their sophomore seasons at SMU and Stanford, respectively, are making their 2025 SoCal Pro Series debuts. They face each other in the second round after Svajda, SMU’s ace, knocked out Long Beach’s Andy Nguyen, a recent UCLA transfer (from UC Irvine), 6-0, 7-5. Kang eliminated Brayden Tallakson, a wild card from Irvine, 6-3, 6-2.
“These (SoCal Pro Series tournaments) are just as hard as a lot of Challengers,” Svajda said. “Playing people you know is also harder, in my opinion. Kyle is a friend of mine.”
Players to watch
Hudson Rivera. The Rancho Santa Fe resident and qualifier who finished his sophomore season at Stanford entered his first SoCal Pro Series event in two years this week and coasted past American Tyler Stice, 6-1, 6-2, in Wednesday’s opening round. The bottom half of the draw opens up with No. 2 seed Smith’s withdrawal and Rivera faces Klaassen in Thursday’s second round.
Rivera, 21, reached the quarterfinals in his men’s ITF debut, in the SoCal Pro Series’ inaugural tournament in 2022, and gave former USD star and eventual tournament champion August Holmgren (current No. 185 ATP ranking) his most difficult match that week in a three-set defeat. Rivera gained a semifinal berth at the SoCal Pro Series event in Lakewood later that summer, beating American teenage phenom Learner Tien (current No. 68 ATP ranking) along the way.
Yilin Chen. The 15-year-old San Diegan who recently completed her sophomore year at Westview High School garnered her first WTA world ranking point in Wednesday’s first round after dispatching Yolande Leacock, 6-2, 6-0. Chen plays No. 5 seed Anita Sahdiieva, of Ukraine, in Thursday’s second round. Chen has advanced from qualifying into the main draw in each of this year’s first three SoCal Pro Series events.
She made her ITF Futures women’s debut last year in the qualifying stages of two SoCal Pro Series tournaments in San Diego. In her SoCal Pro Series debut at Barnes Tennis Center in May 2024, she gave eventual champion Gabriella Broadfoot her toughest test of the week in the final round of qualifying, narrowly losing a third-set (10-point) tiebreaker, 10-7, that enabled Broadfoot to run into the main draw.
Remaining 2025 SoCal Pro Series tournament schedule:
June 16-22 – Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club, Rancho Santa Fe; June 23-29 – Lakewood Tennis Center, Lakewood; June 30-July 6 – Jack Kramer Club, Rolling Hills Estates; July 7-13 – San Diego State University, San Diego.Southern California players can register to play in pre-qualifying events for a chance to earn their way into the main draw as wild cards. The upcoming pre-qualifying schedule includes: June 13-15, Jack Kramer Club; June 20-22, San Diego State University. SoCal players can register for events at ustasocal.com/proseries.
To learn more about the SoCal Pro Series, go to ustasocal.com/proseries. Follow along on Instagram @socalproseries.
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