Santa Barbara’s Kayla Day is working her way back in professional tennis after having ankle surgery last year.
Day, playing in the SoCal Pro Series in San Diego, a pro-entry tournament, roared into the women’s final on Saturday, beating Stanford-bound and hometown player Alyssa Ahn, 6-3, 6-3, at San Diego State.
Day will face San Marino’s Tiammei Wang, another Stanford recruit, for the title. Wang defeated New York’s Christasha McNeil in the other semifinal, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2,
The four wins at the SoCal Pro are the most by Day in a tournament since reaching the semifinals at an ITF World Tour event in San Rafael, Ca., last September.
Day, 25, 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.
The SoCal Pro is serving as another step in her injury comeback. In her absence from the game, her WTA ranking dropped No. 463 after reaching a career-best ranking of No. 84 in April 2024, while playing regularly on the WTA and Challenger tours. She 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 U.S. Open.
She is coming off a first-round loss in a qualifying match at Wimbledon last month.
Day is seeking a sixth ITF pro singles championship in her career. She last won in 2023, when she captured two Challenger Tour 100-level events.
“A title would be super nice,” Day said after her semifinal win. “I don’t need it. I want it. I definitely want it.”
In men’s singles, recent UC Santa Barbara graduate Gianluca Brunkow lost in the semifinals against No. 1 seed Keegan Smith, of San Diego, 6-3, 6-4. No. 2 Dane Sweeny of Australia beat UCLA’s Spencer Johnson in the other semifinal, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.
