Chelsea Bluestein entered the USTA SoCal Championships without a seed. Four wins later, she was the last BYU singles player standing.
Bluestein reached the semifinals in San Diego by winning three deciding sets and beating teammate Sue Yan Tan in the quarterfinals. Arizona State’s Lily Taylor stopped the run 6-3, 6-2, but the useful result had already arrived: BYU’s deepest singles finish came from outside the four seeded Cougar entries.
Tan supplied a quarterfinal run of her own. She and Cara Korhonen also reached the doubles quarterfinals after dropping only two games across their first two matches. Across the main draws and extra matches, eight of BYU’s nine players recorded at least one win.
This was an individual fall tournament, so there is no team score or dual-match result to dress up. The evidence is player-specific. Bluestein handled three different third-set problems. Tan won three singles matches before the all-BYU quarterfinal. Korhonen recovered from an opening singles loss with two extra-match wins and a doubles run.
Bluestein’s five-match path
| Round | Opponent | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Round of 64 | Vesa Gjinaj, San Diego State | W, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 |
| Round of 32 | Sein Myoung, Stanford | W, 6-2, 6-3 |
| Round of 16 | Maria Shmakova, San Diego | W, 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 |
| Quarterfinal | Sue Yan Tan, BYU | W, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 |
| Semifinal | Lily Taylor, Arizona State | L, 6-3, 6-2 |
The first result set the tone. Gjinaj took the opening set 6-2. Bluestein answered by losing only three games over the next two sets. That was BYU’s sharpest first-round recovery and the first clue that her unseeded line on the bracket did not define the weekend.
Her only straight-set win came next, 6-2, 6-3 over Stanford’s Myoung. The round of 16 was less cooperative. Bluestein won the first set against Shmakova, lost the second and then had to take a third-set tiebreak. The official result does not provide point-by-point detail, so there is no honest way to invent a match-point escape or a dramatic rally. The verified fact is strong enough: she won the deciding set 7-6 to reach Saturday.
The quarterfinal asked her to solve a familiar opponent. Tan had also won three matches and forced a third set after dropping the first 7-5. Bluestein took the decider 6-3. That made three deciding-set wins in four rounds, each reached by a different route: a first-set comeback, a final-set tiebreak and a teammate who answered after falling behind.
Taylor ended the run in straight sets. There is no need to turn a 6-3, 6-2 semifinal loss into a moral victory. Bluestein did not win the draw. She did earn four main-draw victories, more than any other Cougar, and beat opponents from San Diego State, Stanford and San Diego before the all-BYU quarterfinal.
That is useful fall evidence for a player who spent last season listed as a redshirt sophomore. It does not assign her a spring lineup position. It gives coach Holly Hasler a clean question for the next event: can Bluestein make repeated deciding-set execution travel from San Diego to a deeper regional bracket?
Tan’s quarterfinal was more than a setup for Bluestein
Treating Tan only as the teammate Bluestein beat would erase most of her weekend.
Tan opened with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Grand Canyon’s Aniela Odrobina. She then survived Anna Linn Moll of San Diego 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 and beat Boise State’s Stella Beldiman 6-4, 6-2. She reached the quarterfinal with two straight wins over host-area and Mountain West opposition after holding the No. 16 seed in the published draw.
The Moll result deserves attention because the middle set went badly. Tan lost it 6-1 and still won the third 7-5. Bluestein’s comeback from a poor first set was more obvious, but Tan had to perform the same repair one round later.
Then the bracket put BYU against itself.
An internal quarterfinal guarantees one Cougar advances and one exits, which makes it a bad tool for broad team conclusions. It does, however, provide a direct competitive result. Tan responded to a 7-5 opening loss by winning the second 7-5. Bluestein was better in the deciding set, 6-3.
The important distinction is that both players earned their way into that match. Bluestein won three times to get there. Tan did the same. BYU did not receive two quarterfinal places because of a bye or a small consolation bracket.
Tan and Korhonen found an immediate doubles shape
Tan and Korhonen produced BYU’s best doubles result. They beat Nevada’s Defne Aydemir and Mia Woo 6-0, then handled UNLV’s Kaho Oyama and Sofiia Sokolvak 6-2.
Seattle’s Kaia Giribalan and Sein Myoung stopped them 7-5 in the quarterfinals. A one-set doubles format can end quickly, and there is no second set available to correct a poor service game. Tan and Korhonen still won 18 of 27 verified games across three matches and were two games from the semifinal.
The pairing is worth carrying forward because its members supplied different singles evidence. Tan reached the main-draw quarterfinal. Korhonen lost her opener to San Diego’s Emily Deming 7-5, 6-4, then beat Utah’s Avery Olsen 6-1, 6-0 and Grand Canyon’s Alexia Clara Adascalitei 6-0, 6-2 in extra singles.
Those two recovery wins do not move Korhonen through the championship bracket, but they matter in a fall format built to create more matches. After the opening loss, she won 24 games and surrendered three across two singles matches. Pair that response with the doubles quarterfinal and Korhonen left San Diego with more evidence than her first-round line suggests.
Eight Cougars found a win
The pregame follow guide identified nine BYU singles entries and warned against reducing the weekend to one team number. The completed result sheet confirms why.
Sephi Sheng and Yuyun Chen joined Bluestein and Tan as first-round singles winners. Sheng beat San Jose State’s Emilija Pranyte 6-3, 6-1. Chen beat Adascalitei 6-2, 6-1. Both lost tight straight-set matches in the round of 32, with each opening set decided 7-6.
The extra matches spread the wins farther down the roster:
- Sage Bergeson beat Grand Canyon’s Claudia Sofia Martinez Solis 6-4, 6-2.
- Korhonen won twice while dropping only three games.
- Bella Lewis beat UNLV’s Stela Dzimovic 6-3, 6-3.
- Allegra van der Walt beat Nevada’s Mia Woo 6-0, 6-2.
- Bergeson and Sheng won an extra doubles match 6-4.
- Bluestein and Chen won an extra doubles match 6-0.
That leaves Angelique van der Walt as the only Cougar without a recorded win in BYU’s finalized sheet. Her one listed result was a first-round singles loss to UNLV’s Nikol Mircheva.
Eight winners is not the same as eight main-draw contenders. Extra matches do not carry the pressure or advancement stakes of a championship round. They still serve the purpose BYU brought nine players to San Diego to pursue: replace an early exit with another scored match instead of a weekend spent watching.
The seeds did not tell BYU’s story
BYU entered with four seeded singles players: Chen at No. 9, Bergeson at No. 11, Sheng at No. 15 and Tan at No. 16. Tan reached the quarterfinal. Chen and Sheng won once. Bergeson lost a three-set opener to Utah’s Hayley Roberts before winning an extra match.
The unseeded group produced the semifinalist.
That does not make seeding meaningless. Tan was the only seeded Cougar to reach the last eight, and her draw position matched a strong weekend. It does show why the fall schedule matters. A roster and seed list can suggest an order; tournament results can interrupt it.
Bluestein’s run did exactly that. Her best win cannot be measured by a national ranking because the official result does not attach one to her opponents. The value comes from the shape of the run: four consecutive main-draw victories, three deciding sets won and a semifinal appearance in the first competition of the fall.
The next test is consistency. One tournament can reveal a player who was underseeded. It cannot prove she will repeat the result against the Mountain Region field or hold the same place when team duals begin.
What comes next
BYU returns to competition at the ITA Mountain Region Championships in Provo from Tuesday, Oct. 13 through Saturday, Oct. 17. The official schedule still lists the event time as TBA.
That two-week gap gives the Cougars a clear set of files to carry home. Bluestein has the deepest run and three deciding-set wins. Tan has a singles quarterfinal plus the best doubles finish. Korhonen has the strongest rebound after an opening loss. Chen and Sheng have tiebreak losses that kept promising starts from becoming longer runs.
The women’s tennis schedule keeps the permanent event path, while the fall schedule map shows how the Provo regional fits into BYU’s route toward November’s individual championships. Fans can also use the women’s tennis hub for roster and schedule updates.
San Diego did not produce a team trophy or a spring lineup. It produced a better opening answer than the seed list: Bluestein was BYU’s last singles player alive, and she had to win three different third sets to get there.
Sources and further reading
- BYU Athletics: Cougars make strong showing at USTA SoCal Championships for the official recap, Bluestein and Tan singles paths, Tan-Korhonen doubles run and next event.
- BYU Athletics: finalized USTA SoCal results for every listed BYU main-draw and extra-match score from Sept. 24-26.
- BYU Athletics event 25547 for the stable official schedule ID, completed status, San Diego location, date window and post-event article link.
- ITA tournament draw for the tournament bracket and organizer-hosted result path.
- BYU Sport Nuts: USTA SoCal follow guide, women’s tennis schedule, fall schedule map and women’s tennis hub.
