Daily Journal Boys’ Tennis Players of the Year: Menlo School

But if Menlo has proven anything over the years, it’s that the Knights are greater than the sum of their parts. There is no team that has had more CCS success than Menlo, which captured the 2026 section title, its second straight and 19th overall.

But that crown was just one of several championship trophies the Knights claimed this season. they opened with Bill Shine Invitational title, added the Golden State Bay Area Tennis Classic and National National All-America Invitational tournament crowns, as well. They completed another undefeated run to the West Bay Athletic League regular-season championship. After winning CCS, Menlo claimed its 13th Northern California title and then finished the season with a flourish by beating Harvard-Westlake-Studio City 6-1 to win its first-ever CIF State championship to cap an undefeated 29-0 season.

Normally, the Daily Journal chooses an individual athlete for postseason honors, but in rare instances athletes share it. This year, the entire Menlo School boys’ tennis team shares the honor of being the Daily Journal Boys’ Tennis Players of the Year.

“The boys are all about it (putting team before the individual),” said second-year head coach Francis Sargeant, who took over for the legendary Bill Shine last year and is now 2-for-2 in winning CCS and Nor Cal tournaments.

“I think that’s what they look forward to.”

Experience and youth

Wrapped inside the team dynamic is one that sees four singles and three more doubles teams playing individual matches and the Knights had a nice mix of experience and youth — which should bode well for the future.

A pair of seniors anchored the top singles and doubles spots. Yuanye Ma was Menlo’s top player and slotted into the No. 1 singles slot for most of the season. Meanwhile, senior Arki Temsamani was teamed with freshman Maximus Chan to form the No. 1 doubles team.

“Temansani was probably our third or fourth best player,” Sargeant said. “He sacrificed for the team.”

Temansani posted a record of 22-1 this season.

Junior Surya Da Datta slotted into the No. 2 singles slot for most of the season, playing in the top spot on occasion. Two more juniors, Lucas Huang, who went 21-1 playing at No. 3 singles and David Lipeles, rounded out the singles lineup.

Alex Zhou, who played at No. 3 doubles with freshman Sage Ash, went 22-1. Kenzo Fujita came off the bench to post a perfect 8-0 mark.

Two other seniors, Brad Engel and Matt Franc, finished off their Menlo careers with their second straight CCS title. Neither played in the starting lineup consistently, but Sargeant was especially appreciative of Engel and the passion and support he brought to his teammates.

“We absolutely don’t win a state title or go undefeated without [Engel],” Sargeant said. “He is so loud and passionate about the team. He didn’t play in some of the big matches, but I promise you, he really embraced his role.”

Embarking on history

The undefeated season is the second in school history, the first coming in 2018. But this was the first one to end in a state championship, one that was built on losing 4-3 last season to two-time defending University-Irvine.

“That was devastating (losing the state title in 2025),” Sargeant said. “The boys knew the state championship was the ultimate goal (this year). But we really didn’t talk about it.

“To be honest, I’m much more of a coach who focuses on the day-to-day.”

But the Knights were not state-champion caliber after the doubles-only Bill Shine Classic win.

“We had a quite a lot of work to do,” Sargeant said.

Menlo took another step forward in winning the 16-team Bay Area Tennis Classic, which featured not just some of the best teams in the Bay Area, but also three teams from Southern California. The Knights went 4-0, beating University-SF 5-2 in the final, after beating Palos Verde 4-3 in the semifinals.

“We weren’t close to where we wanted to be. We should have lost in the semifinals (of the Bay Tennis Classic), to be honest,” Sargeant said. “It went down to No. 3 doubles. It was not a comfortable tournament.”

After that, Menlo embarked on the first couple weeks of WBAL play, beating a Harker team the Knights would beat in both the CCS and Nor Cal finals, before getting their sternest test of the season to date. The Knights headed to Southern California and captured the National All-American Invitational Tournament crown at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates-LA County with another 4-0 record.

There, the Knights exacted their revenge on University-Irvine, beating the Trojans 5-1 in the semifinals. In the final, Menlo beat Harvard-Westlake 5-1, a foreshadowing of the state championship match.

“We go to that tournament because we want the best competition we can find,” Sargeant said. “Did we have expectations of winning the tournament? Absolutely. Otherwise, I don’t even want to go.”

First postseason stop: CCS

After that, Menlo completed its undefeated run to a 31st straight league championship, as the Knights lost only four matches in WBAL play and rolled into CCS with a perfect 21-0 mark and the No. 1 seed.

“As a coach, I hated going through the season undefeated,” Sargeant said. “But the boys were confident (going into CCS). Everyone acknowledged the pressure was there. If you go through a whole season, there are going to be tough moments. When it happens, how are you going to respond?”

In the case of the Knights, like champions. They lost only one match in the second round and quarterfinals, blanked No. 4 Los Altos 7-0 in the semifinals and then beat rival Harker for the third time this season, 5-2, to capture the title.

Nor Cal and State

The Eagles and Knights met for the Nor Cal championship eight days later. Menlo, again, posted a 5-2 decision to move into the state championship final.

Against Harvard-Westlake. Menlo took a 3-1 team lead, with Ma and Huang picking up wins at No. 1 (6-4, 6-3) and No. 3 singles (6-0, 6-1), respectively.

“The biggest match I was proud of was Ma winning at No. 1 singles,” Sargeant said. “He lost 6-0, 6-1 (to HW’s Aiden Zadeh) at the NIT. Got absolutely destroyed. Two months later, he completely turned it around.”

A win at N0. 3 doubles from Ash and Zhou gave the Knights their third point, one away from championship.

But the match still hung in the balance. The No. 3 and No. 4 singles matches split the first two sets and the Knights were down a set at No. 2 doubles. Meanwhile, the No. 1 doubles team of Temsamani and Chan won the first set 6-4 and were serving for the match at 5-4 in the second.

“We wanted to win the match right now. Serving for state, Arki gets tight and gets broken (to tie the set at 5-all). In the past when that’s happened, he would start to spiral out of control,” Sargeant said.

The Harvard-Westlake pair then hold serve for a 6-5 lead, but Chan won his service game to send the set to a tiebreaker, where Temsamani and Chan prevail, 7-3, to give the Knights the title-clinching fourth point and setting off a Knights’ celebration.

“The boys came up clutch in the tiebreak,” Sargeant said. “It was very poetic. Arki, as senior, for him to clinch it, in his last (high school) match ever, it was quite poetic.

“For us to go undefeated was unbelievable. There were plenty of matches we could have lost, but the boys stepped up to the pressure. … A lot of things went our way. It was a great season.”