{"id":388998,"date":"2026-07-07T09:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T09:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/388998\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T09:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T09:08:24","slug":"san-diegan-bryce-nakashima-wins-barnes-center-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/388998\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diegan Bryce Nakashima wins Barnes Center Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

With older brother Brandon watching from the stands, San Diego\u2019s Bryce Nakashima<\/a> captured the first professional singles title of his career Sunday, defeating Ohio State teammate and doubles partner Aidan Kim 6-2, 7-6 (2) in the final of a $15,000 USTA Pro Circuit event at Barnes Tennis Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The victory gave the 22-year-old San Diegan his first World Tennis Tour singles championship and came at the same venue where Brandon Nakashima<\/a> won the 2022 San Diego Open, the lone ATP Tour title of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brandon Nakashima, currently ranked No. 31 in the ATP rankings, returned home this weekend after reaching the second round at Wimbledon and was among the family members on hand for Sunday\u2019s final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Brandon Nakashima said. \u201cTo see him win his first professional title here, where\u00a0also I\u00a0won my first ATP title, it\u2019s pretty special. It\u2019s a special place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI started growing up playing here, every junior tournament at Barnes, so I guess you can say it\u2019s kind of special that the first one came here,\u201d Bryce Nakashima said. \u201cIt\u2019s good to have my brother in attendance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s championship match paired two returning Ohio State standouts who spent much of the past collegiate season winning together. Nakashima and Kim posted a 29-7 record as\u00a0doubles\u00a0partners for the Buckeyes and had never faced one another in\u00a0tournament\u00a0competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always fun\u00a0playing\u00a0your teammates,\u201d Nakashima said. \u201cI know him, his weaknesses. He knows mine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim, an NCAA Division I All-American and Ohio State\u2019s top singles player during the 2025-26 season, said familiarity only goes so far in a championship match.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like another match because we\u2019ve played, like, a million times,\u201d Kim said. \u201cHe just played better than me today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The title continued a strong summer for Nakashima, who reached the first professional singles final of his career at the SoCal Pro Series stop in Irvine two weeks ago. He will return to Ohio State this fall for his senior season and now owns five World Tennis Tour doubles titles in addition to Sunday\u2019s singles breakthrough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe results are starting to come in,\u201d Nakashima said. \u201cI\u2019ve put in a lot of work, off court, on court, at Ohio State, with my coach. We never said it was about the wins. It was just about getting better each day, and the results will come after that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The championship earned Nakashima 15 ATP ranking points and $2,160 in prize money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s singles final, Russia\u2019s Alina\u00a0Shcherbinina\u00a0defeated Pasadena resident Kate Fakih 6-3, 7-6 (1) to become the first player to win three women\u2019s singles titles during a single SoCal Pro Series season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shcherbinina\u00a0advanced through seven matches as a qualifier without dropping a set this week. Across her three tournament victories this summer, she has lost only one set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fakih, a UCLA standout, was playing in the first professional singles final of her career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just relentlessly\u00a0attacking\u00a0and she got me on my heels a little more than I would have liked,\u201d Fakih said. \u201cShe served very well and she returned extremely well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the loss, Fakih praised the Southern California-based series for providing local players an opportunity to compete against high-level professional competition close to home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is great for all SoCal residents,\u201d Fakih said. \u201cIt\u2019s just amazing to get really high-level matches. We\u00a0get\u00a0to see our friends. A lot of these players are in\u00a0college\u00a0so we get to spar against them. Every moment you experience is a win and I\u2019m just so grateful to be here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s doubles finals, Anne-Christine Lutkemeyer and Anita Sahdiieva won the women\u2019s title, while Max Exsted and Noah Johnston captured the men\u2019s championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The seventh and final stop of the 2026 SoCal Pro Series<\/a> begins Monday at the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With older brother Brandon watching from the stands, San Diego\u2019s Bryce Nakashima captured the first professional singles title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156794,156795,156796,74,76,75,18874],"class_list":["post-388998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-2026-socal-pro-series","tag-brandon-nakashima","tag-bryce-nakashima","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}