When Katie Ta advanced to the semifinals of CIF Individuals, she found herself in a quartet of players she admired.
Her next opponent, Peninsula of Rolling Hills Estates’ Annika Ringblom, will be playing at Harvard next year. The other semifinal – Peninsula’s Ena Shibahara vs. Campbell Hall of Los Angeles’ Alexis Pereira – pitted one of the best sophomores in the nation against a senior committed to Texas Christian.
Then there was Ta, the Capistrano Valley junior who entered the season less heralded than the other three semifinalists, but she found herself among them at the end of the year.
“I was really honored because I’ve always looked up to them,” said Ta, who has been selected the Register’s Girls Tennis Player of the Year. “I always hit that wall where I met those top players and I could never go past them. … It just felt really good.”
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After falling behind quickly in the first set against Ringblom, Ta could not come back, losing in the semifinals. But it was a proud end to the season for her. She advanced further in CIF Individuals than any singles player in Orange County, and she will have an opportunity as a senior to try to reach even higher.
Ta was Capistrano Valley’s leader as the Cougars went undefeated in the Sea View League for the second consecutive year and she captured the league’s singles title.
She advanced to the semifinals in individuals with wins over Dana Hills’ Margo Pletcher and Oak Park’s Annette Gulak, two players who Ta said she had historically struggled with in the past.
Those two wins came on the same day and on just three hours of sleep. Ta had flown back from Florida the day before, where she was playing a tournament. She went to school in the morning and then went to Seal Beach Tennis Center – arriving without any time to warm up.
That she put together wins over Pletcher and Gulak without dropping a set was a statement on her improvement over the course of 2013.
“I almost cried and my husband was kind of beside himself,” Ta’s mother, Gigi, said. “Considering last year, she did not make it to the main draw, and this year she just really put a lot of time in and just improved. We were very, very proud of her.”
Ta grew up surrounded by tennis. Both her older brother, Matthew, and sister, Ashley, played for Capistrano Valley under the same coach Ta has, Terri Machado. She picked up her passion for the game simply because she was attending their matches.
Ashley is now on the tennis team at Niagara University in Buffalo, N.Y. Ta hopes to follow her East – though she has her sights set on attending an Ivy League school.
“That’s been my main goal, is to play for a Division I college,” Ta said. “I’ve always wanted to play in the Ivy League conference and I’ve always wanted to go to an Ivy League school.”
mcooper@ocregister.com
