Players from both De Anza College tennis teams made it to the 114th annual Ojai Tennis Tournament alongside over 1,500 of the state’s top tennis players which is to be held in Southern California on April 23-27.

A conference tournament earlier this month at Chabot determined who would qualify for the prestigious state championship, which sends a total of 10 singles and 15 doubles teams to Ojai with men’s and women’s judged separately. After three days of grueling tournaments, the Dons sent five women and three men to Ojai.

The women’s team captain Ghia Mehta, 21, a business finance major, spoke proudly about how well her team has been doing this season and the importance that a majority of her team made it to the state championship.

“From the girls team, five of us made it,” Mehta said. “That is pretty good and there are only eight of us on the team. So I would say that we are doing pretty well this season.”

Not only did many of them make it to the Ojai Championship, but the team had a pretty good season overall.

Jaclyn Lee, 19, psychology major, from the girls team said that many of the teams were fairly easy to beat, with  a couple of teams putting up a fight.

“We’ve only lost to a couple of schools, so it’s not too bad at all,” Lee said. “Foothill was probably our toughest team. They were really hard to play.”

The men’s team also had a great season, coming in second in the league. Jeremy Thai, 22, robotics engineering major, is one of the guys that made it to the state championship and said that they can get first next year with a little bit more focus.

“We did pretty well, we got second in the (league),” Thai said. “Foothill is above us, but I have a feeling that we can step up our game.”

“Hopefully, next year we can be a little bit better, step up our game, and put more focus into the game especially if we can get more players out here, we could do a lot better.”

The entire team, including De Anza Head Coach Ron Ward, stressed that they are busy practicing and preparing for the Ojai Championship, which is a major accomplishment for both teams.

“Generally, I try to motivate the team through the tournaments that we have in the middle and end of the season,” Ward said. “We’ve got a state tournament coming up so I’m just gearing them up for that.”