When Midori Castillo-Meza was 11 years old, she left her parents’ home in Tijuana and moved to Coronado during the week to pursue a tennis dream.
Living with a host family and training full-time at the Coronado Tennis Center, Castillo-Meza quickly learned how to take care of herself. She remembers making scrambled eggs and quesadillas and often biking to nearby Calypso Cafe, where she rotated between tuna melts and chicken melts after long days on the court.
More than a decade later, Castillo-Meza, now 21, returned to the cafe and was stunned when an employee recognized her.
“I remember you,” the woman told her. “You were that little girl.”
That little girl who arrived in Coronado chasing a dream is now one of Mexico’s rising professional tennis players. Days after reaching the quarterfinals at the SoCal Pro Series stop at Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, Castillo-Meza heads to Rancho Santa Fe this week for the seventh and final tournament of the 2026 SoCal Pro Series, riding the momentum of consecutive World Tennis Tour singles semifinal appearances in Irvine and Rolling Hills Estates.
“It was definitely hard at the beginning, but I begged my parents to let me do it,” Castillo-Meza recalled.
“I was convinced I wanted to be a professional. English was my second language, so it was hard for me to communicate, and it sounds kind of sad, but I became very lonely… It worked out for me in the end.”
Today, Castillo-Meza trains daily at Scobee Park in Chula Vista with longtime coach Antonio Ramos, building on lessons first learned from former WTA professional Angelica Gavaldon, who coached both Midori and her older sister Naomi as children.
“Oh my gosh, they were feisty and very hard-working, disciplined and determined,” Gavaldon said of the sisters. “Midori is one of the hardest-working students I’ve ever had.”
Ramos described Castillo-Meza as an “unstoppable lioness.”
Castillo-Meza finished her collegiate career as the University of Arizona’s top player before turning professional in 2025. Competing under the Mexican flag, she enters the Rancho Santa Fe tournament with a career-high WTA singles ranking of No. 928 and an ITF singles ranking of No. 119 after reaching a career-high No. 37 earlier this year.
“For me, it’s the best thing ever,” Castillo-Meza said. “You don’t have to pay for hotels or plane tickets, and you get to play this level of competition just a few minutes from home. I look forward to these events every year. Being in San Diego and having Mexico so close has helped me grow so much as a tennis player.”
Standing at just 5’1″ tall, Castillo-Meza often gives up several inches to her opponents, but said she has never viewed her stature as a disadvantage.
“I actually enjoy playing tall people,” she said.
Castillo-Meza believes her speed and conditioning help offset any height disadvantage.
“As a kid I knew that I could beat anyone,” she said. “One thing that I am so confident about myself is how quick I am and my fitness. I know that tall players eventually get tired. They’re not as fast.”
However, she said that confidence has been tested during her first full year as a professional. Earlier this year, while competing in Florida, she found herself questioning whether the results would catch up to the work she had put in on the court.
“My dream is to be Top 100 in the world,” Castillo-Meza said. “I was playing girls that were Top 400 and the matches were close, but I was asking myself, ‘What am I missing to beat those players?'”
“In your head, you start to create doubts,” she added. “Do I have the tennis to beat them?”
Castillo-Meza began focusing more intentionally on the mental side of the game. Over the past two months, she has incorporated journaling, visualization, meditation and daily affirmations into her routine.
“I’ve worked a lot lately with the mental part,” Castillo-Meza said. “It’s not just tennis. It’s not just the fitness part. The mental part is important too.”
Among those exercises, her coach requires her to write affirmations 100 times each day.
“You repeat it every single day until you believe it and have no doubt your dreams are going to happen,” she said.
Castillo-Meza said she also draws inspiration from fellow Mexican professional Renata Zarazúa, who has found success on the WTA Tour despite a similar frame.
“It’s nice to see someone that shares similar qualities and can make it,” Castillo-Meza said.
She hopes to finish the year ranked among the world’s Top 700 players.
“My ultimate goal is to make it to the Top 100 WTA,” she said. “I would love to make history.”
Castillo-Meza will learn her opening-round opponent when the Rancho Santa Fe draw is released Monday evening as the SoCal Pro Series concludes its final stop of the 2026 season in San Diego County.
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