Corona del Mar girls’ tennis finishes strong to top Portola
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Matches between some of the top girls’ tennis teams in the CIF Southern Section sometimes involve very thin margins.
Case in point: Corona del Mar High sophomore Sienna Lynn suffered a tiebreaker loss at the end of a match at Palos Verdes on Sept. 16, and the hosts were able to squeak out a 10-8 victory.
For the record:
4:03 p.m. Oct. 7, 2026A previous version of this article misidentified CdM doubles player Alexandra Mitchell in a photo caption.
A week later, Lynn again found herself as the center of attention late in a close match, this time against Portola. She trailed Portola’s top singles player, Sahana Chakravarthy, by a 5-3 score in the final round.
This time, a change in attitude was necessary.
“I feel like in the beginning, I was going up in a lot of games, but it was just all mental stuff,” Lynn said after Wednesday’s match. “I think I was really nervous, because I knew it was an important match. I would go up 40-love, then I’d lose the game. But I just started to say, ‘It’s not the biggest deal if I lose — just play loose.’”
Lynn rallied to win the last four games and claim the set, 7-5. It helped CdM earn a 10-8 win at its home courts against Portola, in a rematch of last year’s CIF Southern Section Division 1 title match and SoCal Regional final.
Corona del Mar (7-1), which won both those matches a year ago and was the state runner-up, lost six starters from that team. But the Sea Kings have already shown they still have plenty of talent in 2026.
Junior Julia Cross swept in singles with a trio of 6-0 results Wednesday, while Lynn also swept and sophomore Brynn Patterson won once.
CdM coach Jamie Gresh said his team played extremely well overall. CdM also won three doubles sets against a deep Portola (5-1) squad, which was better than the one doubles set the team earned against Palos Verdes.
“I did three totally different teams today,” Gresh said. “To get three against Portola was good, because Portola always plays good doubles. Their kids are always in the middle, always moving. They serve well, they return well and they work together really well. They kind of beat us to the net a lot, and they’re really good at the net.”
Still, CdM’s No. 3 doubles team of sophomore Ruby Jacobs and freshman Soraya Burwell won twice, helping the Sea Kings take a 4-2 sets lead after the first round and a 7-5 advantage after the second round.
Their energy as a doubles team was contagious; fellow doubles player Olivia Lew, smiling as she said it, called them the two loudest team members.
“Honestly, me and Soraya are really close off the court, and I feel like we both have really positive energy,” Jacobs said. “We’re both big cheerers, very loud. It was kind of refreshing having Soraya cheering me on. Even if I missed a shot, it was always positive energy, and I really appreciated that. I think it really helped us win more points and get back when we were losing.”
The other key doubles set came in the third round, with the match tied 8-8. Lew and senior partner Gigi French rallied from a 4-1 deficit to claim a 6-4 win over Portola’s Sarah Sumida and Audrey Chiou.
“We really just tried to focus on getting shots in,” said French, who was CdM’s only senior starter Wednesday. “At the beginning, we were not being very consistent, and we were making a lot of unforced errors.”
Portola’s lone sweep came from its No. 1 doubles team of Lillian Chhiv and Evelyn Wang.
With so many new faces in the lineup, Gresh said he still feels like his team is one of the top eight in the section. The Sea Kings, who were off to a 3-0 start in the Sunset League, are heavy favorites to claim their fourth straight league title.
They hosted Newport Harbor (3-1 in league) in the Battle of the Bay rivalry match on Thursday.
“We have to move on [from last year], but I think we’re definitely still really strong competitors for the CIF title,” said Lynn, who played doubles last year. “I just feel like our singles are really strong, and our doubles are strong and they’re getting better too. A lot of these girls haven’t even played doubles, and they’re already doing well. I think we have a really strong team this year, and we should just treat it like last year.”
