With the first round now in the past, the Palo Alto High School girls’ varsity tennis team can look forward to tougher competition in the later rounds of the Central Coast Section playoffs. The Lady Vikes will move on to the second round of the tournament after a sweeping 7-0 victory over Los Gatos High School on Tuesday.

But the score was a bit deceiving, as Paly’s triumph did not come easy. Each set was very close. Senior captain and top-ranked singles player Mira Khanna (’11) and singles player Sammy Solomon (’13) both battled their way through three sets to decisively win their matches.

Solomon believes that the team’s motivation came largely from the seniors, who were motivated to perform well in their last CCS tournament.

“[The seniors] really wanted to make it to the second round of CCS,” Solomon said. “We beat Los Gatos last time and we wanted to beat them again.”

Neither Solomon nor the rest of the team anticipated the close match scores. Solomon knew later on that she would have to pick up her intensity in order to win her own match and contribute to the team score.

“I was pretty confident going into the match,” she said. “In the first set I think I got overly confident and started losing, but then I came back and won the second and third set.”

The Lady Vikes face Menlo School in round two at Menlo tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. Should they win, they will play in the CCS quarterfinals at Paly on Friday afternoon.

“Tomorrow’s going to be tough,” Solomon said. “I just hope to play my best and win a set, or hopefully the match.”