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The way the Central Coast Section's tennis tournament has gone the past three years, nobody was surprised that a competitor named Kao was in the boys singles championship match.
After all, Archbishop Mitty's Philip Kao won the crown as a freshman in 2001, took second in 2002, and re-gained the title as a junior last year.
This year, however, another Kao—Monta Vista's Ken Kao—reached the finals.
After ousting the defending champion in the semi-finals, Ken Kao fought hard before bowing 6-4, 7-6 to Mitty's Jay Wong in the finale on May 27 at Imperial Courts in Aptos. Kao nearly pushed the title match into a third set, but lost the second-set tiebreaker 7-3.
In the semi-finals, Ken Kao lost the first set 0-6, but recovered nicely. He claimed the next two sets 6-2 and 6-1 and kept Philip Kao out of the singles final for the first time in four years.
Monta Vista's Kao opened the 16-player tourney two days earlier by rolling to a pair of wins. Kao, the No. 3 seed, beat Homestead's Aaron Elbert 6-0, 6-3 in the first round and York's Taylor Matsumoto 6-1, 6-2 in the second round.
Mitty's Kao escaped a strong second-round challenge from Cupertino's Bijan Hijazi. The Mitty senior won the first set 6-2, but Hijazi took the second 6-3. Kao won the third set 6-3 and advanced to the semi-final. Hijazi had won his first-round match 6-4, 6-3 over Scott Blumenkranz of Menlo.
Wong, seeded No. 2, also had his hands full. He needed three sets to get past Saratoga's A.J. Kerin 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 in the semifinals. Kerin had reached the final four by beating Thien Le of Silver Creek 6-1, 6-0 and Aaron Klapper of Leland 6-4, 7-5.
Los Gatos seniors Lee Gerston and Chase Huebner repeated as doubles champions, beating Simon Cheng and Steve Richard of Leland in the final round. On their way to the finale, the Leland team defeated Fremont's Dan Duog and Senthil Chidambaram in the semifinals 6-2, 6-3.
Monta Vista's team of Brandon Low and Daniel Lee withdrew from the event. They were replaced by Cupertino seniors Anukul Schenoy and Jayanth Parupalli.
Schenoy and Parupalli responded by winning in the first round 6-1, 6-2 against a Sacred Heart Prep team. The Cupertino pair then lost their next match to Leland's Cheng and Richard.
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