Athletes of the Week: M-A’s Tessa Ellingson and Eva Chow

Ellingson and Chow have now been named Daily Journal Athletes of the Week. Because just how far they went ended up making history for the Bears, as the two continued their unbeaten streak on the doubles circuit. This culminated in the duo fulfilling their No. 1 seed in the Central Coast Section individual tournament, sweeping through the bracket to become the first M-A players ever to take home a CCS championship.

“Everyone knew M-A had probably three of the strongest singles players of any team in CCS, so it was recognized that our No. 2 and 3 singles players were very good, and they were playing doubles,” M-A head coach Tom Sorenson said. “So, it wasn’t something that didn’t have credentials. … But still, a freshman and a sophomore seeded No. 1 in a CCS doubles tournament is pretty unusual.”

More unusual, by today’s standards, is to have two PAL athletes left standing at the end of the CCS tourney. The PAL had a good run of doubles championships throughout the 1980s, starting with a Woodside’s Lindsay Bartlett and Tammy Lindsey winning the CCS doubles title in 1979; Burlingame went on to win four straight doubles crowns from 1980-83, including a three-peat from Jennifer Callan; San Mateo’s tandem of Kim Marx and Lisa Salvatierra won back-to-back titles in 1988 and ’89; and Aragon’s Sebrina Lau and Melinda Lau won the CCS doubles championship in 1990.

Since then, the only PAL duo to win it was Hillsdale’s Mariko Iinuma and Natalie Spievack, who earned the CCS individual doubles title in 2013.

Despite M-A’s dominance in PAL play, the Bears had never even had a doubles team reach the CCS individual finals. Only current senior Ava Martin has reached the finals in the CCS individual singles tournament. This year she finished runner-up for the second straight season.

“I was very happy,” Ellingson said of she and Chow’s place in M-A history. “I was kind of surprised because I know so many very good tennis players have come in and out of M-A. I was very surprised, and I was very proud of how we did.”

Ellingson and Chow hadn’t paired up at M-A prior to this year’s postseason, but they did play together on the United States Tennis Association juniors circuit over the summer, as recently as June. Chow hadn’t yet stepped onto the court at M-A, but the incoming freshman soon made her mark.

Chow knew Ellingson and Martin from the USTA arena, and it helped her acclimate to the varsity ranks. Not that it was entirely smooth sailing.

“It was pretty important,” Chow said. “I felt comfortable going into the team because I knew Ava and Tessa. But when I went to tryouts, I was kind of nervous.”

The nerves came into play because Sorenson knew Chow’s reputation as a player and was already touting her as varsity ready the first day of practice. He was yelling as much to his other players as a source of motivation.

“And I hadn’t even hit a ball,” Chow said.

Otherwise, the freshman showed nerves of steel throughout the season. That is, until she and Ellingson debuted on the featured court at Bay Club Courtside last week in Los Gatos. They already had three wins under their belts from the PAL tourney, but never got to celebrate a championship.

That’s because the PAL finals were never played. Rain caused two days of postponements, and when the tournament finally got underway, there was only enough time to advance through the semifinals. This sufficed for CCS qualification purposes as the top two teams from the PAL individual tournament advanced. But the PAL finals will not be played, leaving Ellingson and Chow to share a co-PAL individual doubles championship with Carlmont’s Lisa Borchelt and Brooke Franaszek.

The confusion cast some doubt on where Ellingson and Chow would land in the CCS seedings.

“I did not expect to be seeded at all,” Ellingson said. “I did not know the other teams going into it … so I was pleasantly surprised we were the No. 1 seed.”

Then came the nerves. It wasn’t just the competition that gave the underclassmen the butterflies but also the venue. Being on the featured court at Bay Club Courtside, the two had plenty of family on hand to witness last Tuesday’s the opener against Menlo’s Andra Braicu and Izzy Klugman.

“Tessa told me she was nervous and then I was like: ‘Oh no,’” Chow said.

But the M-A duo battled for a 6-3, 6-4 victory, and followed with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Crystal Springs Uplands School’s Ariella Chua-Gozani and Tali Gabovich later in the day. In last Wednesday’s semifinals, they won 6-1, 6-2 over Evergreen Valley’s Arin Akkaya and Natasha Doan.

That set the stage for a 6-2, 6-4 win in the finals over Monta Vista’s Lelani and Zoe Laruelle.

“For some reason I wasn’t nervous in the finals,” Chow said. “For some reason I was feeling pretty good. … I was enjoying it. I was pretty confident. I think that’s why I wasn’t as nervous.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.