Junior Sylvia Li comes in fourth in the CCS girls tennis individual tournament

Coming into the CCS individual tennis tournament, junior Sylvia Li was seeded third overall with a strong chance of winning the championship.  The tournament began on Nov. 23 at the Courtside Club in Los Gatos.  Li breezed through an unseeded senior, Taryn Andrews of Salinas High School, in the first round in two straight sets, winning 6-0 and 6-1.

Right afterward, Li played freshman Kennedy Davis of Archbishop Mitty High School in the quarterfinal round.  Though she lost the first set, Li came back and won the next two sets, taking the match with scores of 4-6, 6-2 and 7-5. 


The tournament continued on Nov. 24 at the Courtside Club for the semifinal rounds.  Li was matched against senior Kelly Chui of St. Francis High School, who was seeded second overall in the tournament.  After losing the first set by the score of 2-6, Li withdrew from the tournament after she aggravated a headache that had been persisting all week.

"My headache was bothering me all week and I had another tournament near Los Angeles the next day," Li said.

Li entered in the Costa Mesa National Open tournament, and she placed more value on doing well in that tournament.  She dropped out of the CCS tournament in order to recover for her bigger tournament. 

Her teammate, senior Melissa Kobayakawa, who finished second in the CCS tennis doubles tournament with her sister freshman Ruri Kobayakawa, thinks that Li has the temperament to come back and win the tournament the next year.

"Overall, she has good sportsmanship.  She’s composed and doesn’t throw her racket.  She won’t cry or yell and she always tries to be fair," Kobayakawa said. 

Kobayakawa believes that Li’s headache must have affected her playing and that she would have had a strong chance of winning otherwise. 

Even with the disappointing fourth place finish, Li can look forward to returning as the highest ranked player in next year’s tournament.

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