Novelo comes from Ensenada in the Mexican state of Baja California, one of six children of Don Antonio and Ana María.

[1] Moving to the United States, she attended the University of Southern California (USC) for four years on a scholarship, then in the early 1990s competed on the WTA Tour as well as in representative matches for Mexico.

[2] She won three gold medals at the 1990 Central American and Caribbean Games and in the same year debuted for the Mexico Fed Cup team.

At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona she made it into the singles draw as a lucky loser, replacing Helen Kelesi who had become ill.[3] She lost in the first round to number one seed Steffi Graf.

As a doubles player she featured in the main draw of all grand slam tournaments, with her best performance coming at the 1992 Wimbledon Championships, where she and Kristine Radford made the round of 16.