CCS individual tennis tourney opens; 5 county players ousted

“By the bylaws, they have to redraw and change the whole draw,” Sequoia head coach Phil McKenney said.

The new pairings did not smile favorably on San Mateo County. All five county singles players were eliminated on the opening day of play, which included the first round and quarterfinals at Imperial Courts. Two of them — Menlo’s Arki Temsamani and Sacred Heart Prep’s Kyle Chai — advanced out of the first round.

Temsamani fell in the quarterfinals 6-4, 2-6, 10-8 to No. 1 seed Somei Ogata of Saratoga. Chai was eliminated 4-6, 6-2, 10-4 by No. 3 seed Alexander Sanford of Mitty. Temsamani, selected from the list of four at-large alternates, was a late add to the field.

Lynbrook’s Keigo Kamata and Mountain View’s Michael Shukhman also were added to the playing field from the list of alternates. Carlmont’s Aaron Zhang was the only alternate that did not get to play.

Temsamani was paired in the first round with Sequoia sophomore Ethan Khaw, winning in a tiebreaker 6-4, 3-6, 10-6. It was Khaw’s second CCS appearance, having lost in the opening round as a freshman in 2024. It was Khaw’s second straight tiebreaker loss, after falling in the finals of the Peninsula Athletic League boys’ individual singles tournament 6-4, 4-6, 10-8 to Aragon senior Akbar Beg.

“Ethan’s reaction, it was probably the most composed that I’ve seen him,” McKenney said. “Nobody likes to lose, but he took the loss pretty well. He was smiling, and he was really happy to be there.”

Beg was in action Tuesday, getting paired against Mitty’s Sanford, the No. 3 seed. The Aragon senior fell 6-2, 6-1. The two had met earlier in the year, with Beg winning the matchup on his home court at Aragon.

“We also played at Aragon, where he is familiar with the speed and the surface of the court ... because he’s played every match there,” Aragon head coach Dave Owdom said. “And today we played on a neutral court.”

Beg was originally paired against Bellarmine’s Martin Dimitrov.

It was Beg’s third appearance in the CCS individual championships, including one during his freshman year at Hillsdale. Owdom said Beg’s performance Tuesday was better than the score indicated, with plenty of long rallies.

“So, he competed with him,” Owdom said. “It won’t look like it when you see a 6-2, 6-1. But a lot of the games went to deuce, but the other guy just won most of them.”

Aragon entered the CCS individual tournament with the most CCS experience of any team in program history. In addition to Beg, Aragon’s doubles team of Keiya Wada and Thomas Nie will open play in the CCS Boys’ Doubles Team Championships, opening Wednesday at Imperial Courts. It will mark Nie’s third CCS appearance. He paired with Wada last season, and appeared in the tournament as a freshman with a different partner.

Wada and Nie will open against the No. 1 seed, Menlo’s Yuanye Ma and Ben Levin.

“We got a really bad draw,” Owdom said.

Still, it has been a historic year for Aragon, as the Dons won back-to-back PAL Bay Division championships — supplanting Menlo-Atherton as the powerhouse of the league. M-A won 13 straight PAL Bay titles from 2009-23. Mills was the last public school other than M-A to go back-to-back in 2001 and ’02.

“Well it’s the best team I’ve had,” Owdom said. “We don’t win the championship every year.”

In other singles action Tuesday, Bellarmine’s Dimitrov won 6-1, 6-1 over Sacred Heart Prep’s Zade Azmeh. SHP’s Chai won his first-round match 6-1, 6-1 over Stevenson’s Lyke Yoon, before falling to Sanford in the quarterfinals.

The semifinals and finals will be played Thursday at Imperial Courts. Doubles play opens Wednesday, with the semifinals and finals played Thursday.

Other doubles pairings include Menlo’s Cooper Han and Lucas Ying facing Lynbrook’s Taichi Kimura and Steven Liu; and Burlingame’s Nicholas Moshkovoy and Spencer Phonsombat facing Evergreen Valley’s Vihaan Chakravarthy and Havish Kuchibhotla.