Menlo-Atherton’s Ava Martin, Menlo’s Zhang and Brady still alive for Central Coast Section tennis titles

Zhang and Brady won a pair of matches at Bay Club Courtside in Los Gatos to move into Wednesday’s semifinals. The finals will he played 45 minutes after the semifinals matches.

Zhang and Brady won their first-round match 6-3, 6-1. In the quarterfinals, they posted a 6-0, 6-3 victory.

Up next is a match up with top-seeded team from Harker.

The Menlo-Atherton duo of Tess Ellingson and Lila Motamedi won their first-round match, beating a pair from Carmel, 6-2, 6-1. In the quarterfinals, however, the M-A tandem met the top-seeded team from Palo Alto, which eliminated the Bears, 6-0, 6-0.

The Peninsula Athletic League’s other representative, Victoria Gittoes and Nikhila Raman of Carlmont, won the first set of their first-round match in a tiebreaker, 7-3, but their Westmont opponents won the final two sets to post a 6-7, 6-4, 6-2 victory.

The singles tournament kicked off Monday with the first round and quarterfinals. Players from four San Mateo County schools started play, but only second-ranked Ava Martin of Menlo-Atherton is still standing. After winning her first-round match 6-2, 6-2, Martin faced off against Peninsula Athletic League rival Mila Mulready, beating Burlingame's No. 1 singles player 6-4, 6-4.

Martin will now take on Aoi Kunimoto of Gunn in a Wednesday semifinal match at noon Wednesday at Bay Club Courtside with the finals to follow.

Kunimoto pulled off the upset of the tournament so far in knocking off third-seeded Penelope Wong of Mountain View in the first round. Kunimoto won the first set 6-1 before Kunimoto had to retire. In the quarters, Kunimoto cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 win.

Mulready won her first-round match 6-2, 6-2 over Sacred Heart Prep's Natalie Dias, who got into the main draw as the No. 2 alternate. 

Aragon Varsha Jawadi was the fourth county player to make the tournament and while the sophomore went one-and-done, she certainly pushed eventual winner and fourth-seeded Emily Tan of St. Francis, with Tan pulling out a 6-0, 4-6, 6-1 win.