Daily Journal Girls’ Tennis Players of the Year: Menlo-Atherton’s Tess Ellingson and Eva Chow

Because of their accomplishments, they will share Daily Journal Girls’ Tennis Players of the Year honors.

“We’ve never had a better 1, 2, 3,” M-A head coach Tom Sorenson said.

Sorenson has never had a better CCS doubles team, either. Ellingson and Chow had played with each other previously during junior tournaments. When the time came to decide who would play singles and doubles in the CCS tournaments, Sorenson left it up to his players to decide.

“They knew they were going to CCS. … I figured they should make those decisions themselves and they did,” Sorenson said. “[Ellingson and Chow] had played a little bit together before. … It was kind of a natural partnership.”

Having played the CCS doubles tournament last year, Ellingson extended an invitation to Chow to partner up this year.

“I really enjoy doubles,” Ellingson said. “I kind of went up to Eva and said, ‘Hey, we can play doubles together. I think we can do really well.’”

The coupling worked in part because not only did Ellingson’s and Chow’s game complement each other, their approach to the sport was similar. Both play an aggressive style and both know they’re good tennis players.

“They both have a little bit of swagger. If you know them well enough and are privy to the way they handle tougher matches … you know they’re not over-awed by anyone,” Sorenson said. “No one has a bigger game than Tess. … She just hits the ball so aggressively and almost always looks like the aggressor.

“I think Eva, I don’t think she would be conscious of this, I think she borrowed some of that from Tess. It was good for Eva to play with Tess.”

Said Chow: “I always try to be pretty aggressive. But when you have someone aggressive next to you, it pushes you to be more aggressive.”

Despite being the No. 1 seed in the doubles tournament, Ellingson said there were no expectations other than to play the matches and see what happens.

“I know all the other [doubles teams] are very strong,” Ellingson said.

Not until they got to the final did Ellingson truly believe they had a shot at winning the title.

“We can do this, it doesn’t mean we will do this,” Ellingson said of the mindset at the beginning of the tournament. “I tried not to look ahead. … When we got to finals, I’ve played [the team from Monta Vista] in doubles before. I knew we could beat them.”

Chow said she didn’t quite understand the magnitude of winning a CCS championship. While she was happy with the win, she realized it might be a bigger deal than she thought when she saw Ellingson’s reaction to the victory.

“Right when we won, her face lit up,” Chow said. “Usually Tess looks pretty cool.”

Ellingson knew it was a big deal. She and Chow, despite M-A’s strong tennis program, became the first Bears to win a girls’ CCS tennis title.

“I know there are a lot of strong girls who have come through M-A,” Ellingson said. “It was great to win (a CCS championship), but then to find out we were the first to win, I was even more happy about it.”

The pair’s dominant run in CCS was set up by an equally dominating run through the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division schedule, where the Bears went undefeated in capturing yet another PAL crown. Not only did they go a perfect 14-0 in PAL matches, they both did so without dropping a set.

Ellingson even moved into the No. 1 slot on a couple of occasions and still was hardly pushed. Chow suffered a wrist injury midway through the season, so she got a head start on doubles play, making a pair of appearances at No. 1 doubles, winning both of those matches as well.

They also won their matches in a tournament match against Menlo School, becoming one of the few schools from San Mateo County to beat the Knights over the past 20 years before beating the Menlo doubles team in the first round of the CCS tournament.

“These two players definitely ended up being much better doubles players … mainly because I think both don’t have a lot of inhibition. They don’t have a lot of, what I call, ‘self protection,’” Sorenson said. “These two are very self-assured. I think it comes from a couple of places: One, it’s self-awareness; they know they’re good athletes. … And secondly, when they’re at their best, they’re playing with a lack of concern about making mistakes and a lack of concern about failing.

“That sort of team psychology is really needed.”