DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

In the world of high school girls’ tennis, Estancia High junior Ellie Edles might be the most humble standout one would ever find.

Ask her about her favorite moment in tennis, and she doesn’t really know. Edles knows she won a pair of tournaments in August, the Cerritos Summer Junior Tournament and the Orange County Tennis Academy Junior Open.

And, most recently, she captured the Orange Coast League singles championship on Nov. 2 with a 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (4) victory over Madeline Jaeger of Laguna Beach.

Not unexpected for the No. 1 seed who went 21-0 in league play for the Eagles, whose season ended with a 14-4 loss to Harvard-Westlake Thursday in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs.

But the singles league championship still is definitely sweet for Edles, who was Golden West League runner-up as a freshman and OCL runner-up a year ago.

So that’s got to be your favorite moment in tennis, right Ellie?

“I don’t know,” Edles said. “Can we come back to that question?’ ”

Make no mistake that Edles is excited about the win. Jaeger is the same player that she beat in three sets in last year’s Orange Coast League semifinals.

“We had a really good match,” said Edles, who was up a set and 4-2 in the second set before Jaeger started to rally. “I kind of let up a little bit, and she started playing really, really well. We just battled it out in the third. She’s always fun to play, because she has really good sportsmanship and carries herself really well on the court.”

So does Edles, who may be having trouble answering the question because she is such a team player and doesn’t give much thought to individual accolades.

“I like [the high school atmosphere] a lot,” Edles said. “I used to play soccer, and I always liked being on a team in soccer. Tennis is always so lonely. Playing high school tennis is really fun because you get to be with a team, and all the girls on the team are really fun.”

She is always wanting to improve her game, even if she does it quietly as she’s not a big rah-rah type of player. But that’s OK, said Estancia Coach Rachel de los Santos.

“I think just because of her tennis game and show good she is, the other girls really start to look up to her,” de los Santos said. “She’s a role model and leader just because of how she plays tennis.”

How Edles plays tennis has been strong for some time now. In her three-year career at Estancia, she has a sparkling regular-season record of 126-8. She has been playing tennis ever since she can remember, and competitively since she was 8 or 9.

But for Edles, it was a childhood full of moving until her family settled in Costa Mesa when she was in the fourth grade. That’s because her dad is UC Irvine women’s tennis coach Mike Edles.

Mike Edles, who played at UC Irvine in the late 1970s and helped lead the ’Eaters to the NCAA Division II national title in ’79, also coached Chapman University to three NCAA Division II national titles from 1985-88 before Ellie was born. He also coached at Cal State Hayward, Boise State and Hawaii before the three-time Big West Coach of the Year joined his alma mater in 1996.

A lot of moving, also caused by the fact that Ellie’s mom, Laura, is a college professor who now teaches sociology at Cal State Northridge. So Ellie Edles was born in Oakland, and has also lived in Boise, Idaho, Honolulu, Hawaii and Irvine.

“Yeah,” she said with a laugh. “They’re very different.”

And her aunt, Diane Desfor (now Diane Desfor Stalder), was a two-time All-American player for USC in the ‘70s as well.

“Especially in junior tournaments, everybody knows the name Mike Edles,” Ellie said. “Both my mom’s side [of the family] and my dad’s side grew up playing in Long Beach.”

No pressure from dad, though. Ellie’s older brother, Benny, who graduated from Estancia in 2006, played doubles for the Eagles but wasn’t a tournament player.

“I’ve always played, but he leaves it up to us how far we want to take it,” Ellie Edles said.

Edles has also had to deal with adversity. In eighth grade, she began suffering from back problems that eventually derailed her tournament career for 16 months.

They also forced her to wear a back brace, which she wore for nearly two years before leaving it behind this summer.

Then, there was a tendon injury suffered a couple months ago in her left wrist, which forced her to abandon her traditional two-handed backhand and adopt a one-handed, slice backhand.

Edles, who also trains at Matchpoint Tennis Academy in Santa Ana, brushes off the injuries.

“It’s all good now,” she said.

For one, she and de los Santos agree that the tendon injury has actually bettered her game — the slice backhand she was forced to hit is now a weapon. It’s how de los Santos said Edles came back against Jaeger, after going down, 3-0, in the final set.

“My slice wasn’t so good before, but now it’s definitely one of my stronger shots,” Edles said.

But, to her coach, the fact that Edles has been able to bounce back so well actually brought Estancia closer together.

“A lot of high school athletes, especially a lot of female high school athletes, they don’t usually experience an injury like that and have to come back,” de los Santos said. “They might have a stomach ache or something and not want to practice. I think it’s definitely an inspiration and it really makes all of the girls tougher.”

Tough, like answering the question of your favorite athletic moment. Edles has plenty of memories from both tournament tennis and high school tennis.

“I really like playing tournaments,” said Edles, who met Newport Harbor High senior tennis player Alex McIntosh through playing tournament tennis. The two are now good friends.

“It gets really competitive, so it’s always fun,” Edles said. “You meet a lot of people through it. It’s really different from high school tennis, but it’s nice to do both.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.