Future’s bright for Carlmont girls' tennis team

Carlmont (10-2 PAL Bay, 12-2 overall) took care of business on its home court Tuesday with a 7-0 win over Woodside (7-5, 8-6). The Scots did not drop a set all afternoon with No. 3 single Chloe Khachadourian and No. 4 single Ashwika Narayan — both freshmen — setting the tone.

“We’ve got a good crop,” Carlmont head coach Margaret Goldsmith said.

Khachadourian defeated Woodside’s Eva Urbanek 6-0, 6-2, and Narayan won 6-1, 6-3 against Camilla Jerng.

It seems almost unfair other Bay Division contenders should have to pit their No. 3 and 4 singles against Khachadourian and Narayan, who saw success earlier in the season when injuries forced them to move up to No. 1 and 2, respectively. Both went undefeated playing at the top two spots.

Both also play on the United States Tennis Association circuit. The two have never gone head-to-head in USTA play. Instead they first met on the practice court when they arrived at Carlmont earlier this year.

“The first time she played me, she crushed me,” Khachadourian said of her freshman counterpart. “Everything, her forehand, her backhand, is really good. She’s just an amazing player.”

Narayan’s strength was on display Tuesday. Indeed, her forehand and backhand are both strong and exacting. And her rocket serves are surprisingly well placed considering their consistent velocity.

Still, Khachadourian’s consistent play, especially her strength on defense, gave her the better seeding in the Carlmont lineup heading into the season. And, since Narayan became a fulltime singles player after playing the first several matches of the years at doubles, they have maintained the lineup order.

“She’s really aggressive and she goes for every ball,” Narayan said, “and every time during tense points, when a lot of us are holding back, she still knows her shots.”

The two moved up to the top of the singles lineup due to injuries to Carlmont’s cornerstone seniors. Both of those seniors — No. 1 Victoria Gittoes and No. 2 Nikhila Raman — were back in action Tuesday. Gittoes defeated Woodside No. 1 Daisy Koch 6-1, and Raman took down Avantika Pai 6-1, 6-1.

“So, we’re back to full force, which is great,” Goldsmith said.

With the win, Carlmont is all but assured of maintaining home-field advantage throughout the PAL team playoffs. With the first-place team in the PAL Bay Division earning a bye for the PAL tournament and automatic thoroughfare into the Central Coast Section playoffs, the four-team field in the PAL tourney consists of the second-, third- and fourth-place teams from the Bay Division and the first-place team from the PAL Ocean Division.

Menlo-Atherton is a lock to win the PAL Bay championship. Now, Carlmont needs just one more win to lock up second place and home-field advantage in the PAL playoffs. With Burlingame and Woodside entering play Tuesday tied for third place, Burlingame moved into third place outright by virtue of Woodside’s loss.

Fourth-place Woodside needs to win either of its last two matches to clinch fourth place, and a playoff bid. But the Wildcats have their work cut out for them with matches against Menlo-Atherton and Burlingame to close out the regular season. A misstep by fifth-place Aragon in its last two matches would also send Woodside to the PAL tourney.

“Our team isn’t super competitive, but we have the drive to win,” Woodside senior Carmen Bechtel said. “But mostly we’re focused on having a good time on the court.”

Woodside’s sister act

Carmen Bechtel and her younger sister, sophomore Annabelle Bechtel, have settled in as the Wildcats’ No. 1 doubles team. This would have seemed like a ludicrous scenario two years ago when Annabelle Bechtel arrived at Woodside. Despite growing up with a tennis enthusiast in the household in her father Adam, she hadn’t played much tennis if at all, and was looking instead to play high school volleyball.

When COVID shuttered all high school athletics in the fall of 2020, however, it affected Annabelle Bechtel’s volleyball ambitions. Tennis was one of the first high school sports to get up and running in California in the spring, and it quickly became known volleyball, being an indoor sport, would require players to wear masks in its return to the court.

“Volleyball with masks sounded awful,” Annabelle Bechtel said. “So, I was like: ‘Tennis! It’s outdoors, it feels safe!’”

The Bechtels have been paired together ever since and have been one of Woodside’s strengths this season. Fourth place might not sound like success to some, but it is music to the ears of Woodside head coach Lauren Denenberg.

When Denenberg took over the Woodside program in 2018, her Wildcats were still in the lower PAL Ocean Division. But they took the Ocean title that season — just the program’s second league title, both in the Ocean Division, since 1996 — and were promoted to the PAL Bay, where they’ve been ever since.

With nine seniors on roster, the Wildcats anticipate a rebuild just beyond the horizon. But with those seniors returning to the court this season following the shortened 2020-21 season, and the underclassmen playing their first full varsity season, they’re just enjoying the ride.

“They’ve (the seniors) just embraced the young kids and they’re having a blast,” Denenberg said.

In doubles action: Carlmont No. 1s Lisa Borchelt and Brooke Franaszek defeated Bechtel and Bechtel 7-5, 6-1; Carlmont No. 2s Mallika Agrawal and Anjali Mehta defeated Madeline Lee Kailyn Holty 6-1, 6-1; and Carlmont No. 3s Saya Deshpande and Meiling Rowland defeated Adin Helfand and Claire Cook 6-1, 6-2.