Where his tennis journey is concerned, the questions and doubts have weighed on Rancho Santa Fe resident Jacob Brumm for years. He recalls that he almost gave up his dream of a professional tennis career for a career search that aligned with his Astrophysics degree that he graduated with from UC Berkeley after the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out much of the 2020-21 NCAA season – his senior season.

Said Brumm: “I remember that senior year, once our season got cancelled, I went to a couple job fairs at Berkeley. I was looking online at jobs in the aerospace industry. I got my LinkedIn account all looking great.”

It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Brumm’s career path could be exponentially more lucrative and secure than continuing to grind on an ITF World Tennis Tour circuit that has seen him enter 77 ITF events, dating back to his first entry into the qualifying draw at an F25 Futures event in Laguna Niguel, Calif. just after he began his freshman year at Torrey Pines High School.

It turns out that 77^th ITF entry at this week’s SoCal Pro Series stop at the University of San Diego was the charm, serving as validation for Brumm’s own self-belief, the shared labor of love for tennis he holds with his immediate family and his tennis family at Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club, and honoring the legacy of his late mother, Laurie Goldenson, and the influence and impact she had on his life.

Playing in his first ITF ($15,000) singles final along the USTA Pro Circuit on Sunday, Brumm finally broke through with a 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory over 19-year-old Ohio State freshman Jack Anthrop. Then Brumm broke down upon sharing a teary embrace with his father, Bruce, which lasted for a few minutes at the net.

The emotional release was therapeutic for Brumm, who pegged Sunday’s singles championship as “tied for first” among his feats in tennis.

Said Brumm: “It’s just an accumulation of all the years, looking back from when I started tennis at such a young age to now. There’s been so many ups and downs over the course of my tennis career. I always had faith and kept my head down and just worked hard, even in the darkest times, and it’s just really rewarding.

“It hasn’t come easy by any means. I’ve had to really look hard with my coaches in the mirror and evaluate my game and what adjustments I need to do on my game to get to the level to win one of these. Our focus was never on (ATP ranking) points because if you just focus on points, you’ll never win one of these because you need the level.

“I told my dad at dinner last night that, win or lose, that I’ll never forget this tournament. I’ll always remember it. I’ll always talk about it. This will go down as one of my most special tennis memories. Today just made it that much better.”

Brumm’s mother, Laurie, passed away in 2019. It was the first time Brumm struggled to reconcile what priority tennis held in his life. He did not play the 2019-20 winter/spring season with Cal. Thoughts of his mother rushed to the forefront during that extended embrace with his father at the net.

“He just said that everything’s okay,” Brumm said. “We both were emotional and wished that my mom was here to see this. She played such a big role in everything, all my tennis and life. It’s hard knowing that everything I do from now on, she doesn’t get to experience it or know that I got to do it. But she told me that she was always really proud of me and she knew that I was going to go on to do great things.

Brumm, 24, has already played 16 ITF events this year. He hadn’t made it out of the first round of his first four SoCal Pro Series tournaments, dating back to last year’s inaugural campaign.

Suddenly, he leads the ‘Race to Indian Wells’ for the qualifying wild card towards the 2024 BNP Paribas Open, and he is trying to play the remaining five SoCal Pro Series events. The BNP Paribas Open wild card opportunity is a prime example of why Brumm continues to play tennis.

“I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Astrophysics, so I meet a lot of people out in the world that say, ‘Why are you playing pro tennis? You could be making a six-figure salary working.’ And I tell them it’s not for the money that I am playing tennis. It’s not for the fame. What it is … is for all the people that came out here and watched me today, that I can one day go to big tournaments in great cities with all these people and the happiness that my tennis would bring to all of us, and the journey of getting to those tournaments, is just so priceless.

“And BNP is obviously one of those tournaments that, if I could get the wild card and all of these people could go out there and watch me. We would have so much fun. That is why I am playing tennis, for those experiences. All I want to do is try to reach my potential.”

Brumm earned 15 ATP ranking points and a winner’s prize of $2,160, while Anthrop collected eight ATP ranking points and a runner-up’s share of $1,272.

Fangran Tian, who completed her freshman year at UCLA by winning the NCAA Division I women’s singles national championship two weeks ago, won her first SoCal Pro Series singles and doubles titles this weekend. She blitzed 15-year-old Aspen Schuman, 6-1, 6-2, in Sunday’s women’s singles final.

Tian, 19, also partnered with her UCLA teammate, Kimmi Hance, to edge the University of Texas’ Malaika Rapolu and Baylor’s Anita Sahdieva, 3-6, 6-1, 11-9 (third-set tiebreaker), in Saturday’s women’s doubles final. Torrance resident Hance, 20, successfully defended her 2022 SoCal Pro Series women’s doubles championship at USD, while Tian won her third ITF doubles title.

Rain delayed Sunday’s women’s singles final on Court 1 to 3:10 p.m., four hours and 10 minutes after a scheduled 11 a.m. start. Instead of following the women as originally scheduled, the men’s final began on Court 4 at approximately 3:30 p.m.

In the last month, Tian has won 15 of 16 matches, from the NCAA Division I Individual Championships to the SoCal Pro Series, and 14 of those wins came in straight sets. After dropping the first set in her first-round match this week, Tian did not yield more than two games in any of the final 10 sets over the five match wins. She plans to play twice more on the SoCal Pro Series, at the Jack Kramer Club (Week 4) and Racquet Club of Irvine (Week 5), before returning home to China for the summer.

“I’m kind of relieved because there’s been so much tennis recently,” Tian said. “I feel like, winning NCAAs, I’m kind of just like in a dream. I don’t even know if that’s real or not. Winning this feels more realistic. ITFs is what I played before coming to college. I’m always happy to win both tournaments. I really like the court here. I like slower courts. I have more time to read and react. I tried to bring more energy into the matches this week and tried to focus more on each point, mentally.”

Hailing from Beijing, China, Tian overmatched Schuman – the Menlo Park, Calif. resident who played in her fourth ITF event and recently finished her freshman year of high school – by establishing 5-0 leads in both sets in polishing off her second career ITF singles title. Tian earned 10 WTA world ranking points and a $2,352 winner’s prize. Schuman received six WTA world ranking points and $1,470 runner-up prize.

Hance and Tian received 10 WTA world ranking points apiece and split a $955 winner’s prize in doubles. Rapolu and Sahdieva collected six WTA world ranking points each and split a $515 cash prize.

In Saturday’s men’s doubles final, Pepperdine products Andrew Rogers and Daniel De Jonge stopped San Diego native and 2017 Del Norte High School graduate Patrik Trhac and El Cajon resident Isaiah Strode short of their first SoCal Pro Series men’s doubles title with a 3-6, 7-6 (5), 10-4 (third-set tiebreaker) victory.

The SoCal Pro Series title is the fourth ITF doubles title for Tennessee native Rogers, 24, since August and the second ITF doubles title for Dutchman De Jonge, 23. Both received 15 ATP world ranking points and split a $930 winner’s prize.

University of Utah product Trhac made his ITF event debut this week and Strode had sought his second ITF doubles title, and his first since 2018. Trhac, 24, and Strode, 25, earned eight ATP world ranking points each and split a runner-up prize of $540.

The SoCal Pro Series wraps up its San Diego County swing of $15,000 ITF World Tour men’s and women’s tournaments at Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego next week. Tournament admission and parking is free to the public at all SoCal Pro Series events.

The SoCal Pro Series’ remaining tournament dates and locations are:

• June 12-18 – Barnes Tennis Center, San Diego
• June 19-25 – Jack Kramer Club, Rolling Hills Estates
• June 26-July 2 – Racquet Club of Irvine, Irvine
• July 3-9 – Lakewood Tennis Center, Lakewood
• July 10-16 – Lakewood Tennis Center, Lakewood