CLAREMONT, June 27, 2026 (by Steve Pratt)
San Diego’s Midori Castillo Meza and Alyssa Ahn – both playing in their 21st SoCal Pro Series event this week at Biszantz Family Tennis Center in Claremont – took different routes to the semifinals on Friday in the ITF World Tennis Tour $15,000 tournament hosted by USTA Southern California.
The 22-year-old unseeded Castillo Meza, who played collegiately at Arizona and plays under the Mexico flag, beat former Michigan star and No. 2 seeded Amy Zhu, 6-4, 6-3, to advance to her second straight SoCal Pro Series semifinal. She will next face the 19-year-old Stanford sophomore Ahn as the No. 7 seed came back to beat former USC All-American No. 4 seed Salma Ewing, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.
If she can pull off the win against Ahn, it would be the first career ITF Pro Circuit final for Castillo Meza, who was born and raised in Chula Vista. Ahn, who won the 2025 USTA Billie Jean King Hardcourt Nationals and played in the women’s main draw of the US Open, will be making her fourth career pro semifinal appearance after reaching one previous final and is still seeking her first singles title.
Castillo Meza said she remembered playing the 31-year-old Zhu “five or six years ago.” A simple ITF player activity search shows that, indeed, a then 15-year-old Castillo Meza beat Zhu in the first round of a Malibu W35 as a wild card in qualifying in just her third pro tournament.
“I’m very excited for another semifinal,” Castillo Meza said. “I know that I’ll go out there and compete the way that I’ve been competing, giving it my all, and confident that I can win it, of course.”
In the other semifinal, top-seeded former UCLA standout Alexandra Vagramov will take on Northern California’s No. 5 seeded Alexis Nguyen, who spoiled an all-UCLA semifinal by beating recent Bruin graduate Anne Christine Lutkemeyer from Irvine, 6-7(2), 6-3, 6-3. Vagramov downed 17-year-old Thara Gowda, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.
Earlier this week, Laguna Beach native and Stanford sophomore Jagger Leach called the Claremont $15K a “Challenger-level tournament” and was enjoying the weather, the familiar hardcourt surface and the Play Replay Electronic Line Calling system the SoCal Pro Series tournaments have been using with much success this summer. He dropped the first set to qualifier Oliver Ojakaar from Estonia, 3-6, before coming back to record a 6-0, 6-4 quarterfinal win.
Leach, 19, will face the streaking UCLA senior Spencer Johnson from Ladera Ranch in the semifinals at 11 a.m. Saturday. Johnson won his ninth straight singles match having captured his first career ITF singles and doubles titles last weekend in Irvine as he pulled off a nifty three-set win over top-seeded Ohio State All-American Aidan Kim, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
Johnson will have his hands full against Leach, who is coming back from a serious elbow injury and has played just one other tournament (Indian Wells qualifying) since making the finals at Junior Wimbledon nearly a year ago, although Leach did have a successful first freshman year playing in the ACC for the Cardinal.
In the other semifinal, Alex Rozin, an Arizona senior from Toronto, Canada, takes on 18-year-old Jack Satterfield, a Vanderbilt sophomore who was a finalist in singles at the USTA National Hardcourt 18s at Kalamazoo last summer.
In the men’s doubles final taking place on Saturday it will be a battle of unseeded teams as Rhode Island’s Matt Kuhar (Bryant College) and Henry Lieberman (North Carolina) take on San Diego’s Michael Blando (UC-Riverside/Utah) and San Jose’s Hugo Hashimoto (Columbia). In the women’s doubles final also not before 1:30 p.m., top-seeded Paola Lopez, a recent high school graduate from Florida, and Zhu will take on UCLA sophomore Kayla Chung from Stanton and UCLA senior Ahmani Guichard, who hails from Florida.
To learn more about the SoCal Pro Series, go to socalproseries.com.
