Daily Journal Boys’ Tennis Player of the Year: Menlo’s Cooper Han

The two had a lot in common. They’d both finish their Menlo careers at No. 1, where Han played as a junior and senior. They’d both prove NCAA Division I caliber players — Burnett recently wrapped up his sophomore season at University of Texas, and Han is currently settled into his off-campus apartment in Evanston, Illinois, where he will attend Northwestern University as a student-athlete in the fall. The two even played as doubles partners on the USTA Junior Circuit prior to their time at Menlo.

Now, they have something else in common, as Han has been named Daily Journal Boys’ Tennis Player of the Year.

“We were really good friends,” Han said. “We had practice together every day, would see each other at tournaments. ... He was kind of my doubles partner for a while. So, we were really good friends.”

Han will hold a unique place on the timeline of Menlo history, though, as he played No. 1 single in the first season under head coach Francis Sargeant.

It was a successful season, indeed. The Knights won a trio of titles, rising to the top as champions in the West Bay Athletic League, the Central Coast Section, and the CIF Northern California region. At the CIF USTA State Championship, Menlo came up just short of the state crown, falling to University-Irvine 4-3 in the final match of the year at Sierra Sports & Racquet Club in Fresno.

The deep postseason run served as both the first chapter of Sargeant’s Menlo career, and the last chapter for Han’s. When the two first met, Han was on a recruiting trip to Cal when Sargeant was an assistant coach for the Golden Bears from 2022-24. Funny enough, it was Sargeant who ended up coming to Han when he took over the Menlo program this season following the retirement of longtime coach Bill Shine.

“I don’t know if I was even considering Cal,” Han said. “I just really liked Francis. ... The fact that he came to Menlo was just really ideal.”

Shine left some big shoes to fill with his retirement after running the Menlo tennis program for 29 years. Greater than his legacy of building the strongest high school program in Northern California — his boys’ teams won 17 CCS and 11 Nor Cal titles; his girls’ teams won 11 CCS and four Nor Cal titles — was his reputation as a player’s coach. In short, to play tennis for Shine was to love him.

“Bill was amazing,” Han said. “He was like the ideal high school coach. He was just super supportive. He really understood just how to coach a high school team. And Francis, coming from a college team, was different. He kind of ran our team more like a college team. I think that was really great for us. All the guys really loved Francis. He was, I would say, just the perfect replacement for Bill.”

Menlo, however, was on a mission heading into 2025. Shine’s final year at the helm ended in disappointment, as the Knights fell in the CCS semifinals to Saratoga, marking the first time since 2008 that Menlo did not qualify for the Nor Cal tournament.

“The end of the season the year before was pretty disappointing,” Han said. “I think we were all really motivated after that year. And I personally was too.”

The Knights charged out of the gate and never looked back. During the regular season, Menlo dropped just one match, that coming amid a national field at the prestigious 24th Annual High School All-American Team Tennis tournament.

From there, the Knights swept through WBAL play and earned their reprieve in CCS, dropping just one match in the tournament with wins of 7-0 over Cupertino, Los Altos and Homestead, before reveling in a 6-1 victory over Harker in the finals.

Menlo’s redemption arc in the CCS team tournament wasn’t the pinnacle of Han’s performance on the CCS stage, however. That came in CCS individual doubles play with an unlikely run into the tournament finals. While Han played exclusively as a singles player to that point, he had a wild out-of-the-box idea heading into the tourney. Instead of playing for the CCS individual singles crown, he opted to play doubles with an unsung teammate, one not even seeded on the Menlo ladder — his best friend, senior Lucas Ying.

“That was really fun,” Han said.

With the top four teams in the CCS individual doubles tournament earning seedings, Han and Ying were unseeded. That proved not to matter as the duo knocked off Menlo teammates Yuanye Ma and Ben Levin, the bracket’s No. 1 seed, 6-4, 4-6, 10-7 in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, Han and Ying eliminated another seeded pair, defeating No. 4 St. Ignatius, Devin Stuppin and Marco Magnano, 4-6, 6-4, 14-12.

In the finals, Han and Ying finally ran out of gas with a 7-5, 6-2 loss to No. 2 Saratoga’s Nikhil Srivasta and Akiva Goldwasser. That was May 22. One day later, Friday, May 23, Han was back on the court as Menlo’s No. 1 single in the second round of the Nor Cal tourney.

After the Knights won 6-1 over Lowell-SF in the tournament opener prior to Han’s arrival, they rolled with their true No. 1 back at the top of the ladder with a 7-0 win over Amador Valley-Pleasanton in the semifinals later in the day. The next day, Menlo earned its 12th all-time Nor Cal crown with a 6-1 win over California-San Ramon.

The following week, Han’s varsity career ended with a 6-4 7-5 loss to University’s Rivhvanth Krishna, as Menlo fell 4-3 in the state championship.

“That day was really emotional,” Han said. “After we lost, we were all really sad, but we really did fight. We left it all out there.”

Now, Han is gearing up for the USTA Boys’ 18 National Championships, starting Aug. 1 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It will mark his second appearance in the boys’ 18 tournament. He previously played twice at boys’ 16.

In talking about life beyond Menlo, Han still describes himself as part of the team.

“We’re losing a couple of players besides myself, but hopefully everybody improves over the summer,” Han said. “I think we’ll still have a really good team.”

Ready to officially report to the Northwestern campus in early September for the fall semester — after a grueling summer of mandatory double days along with daily weight training — Han is looking forward to the start of the next chapter of his tennis career. He is intent on approaching the sport like he always has. By leaving it all on the court.

“Menlo tennis felt like it was great all four years,” Han said. “The fact that it was my last year too, I wanted to do the best I could.”