I began to travel to tournaments in Wellington and Auckland and played my way through to more semi-finals. “I was developing as a player and as a person as well. At age 14, I reached the indoor nationals singles final and won the doubles final. Things really started to kick off.” By July 2022, Jack was ranked No.1 nationally in his age group and taking on older players. In November that year, he won the New Zealand Junior Masters U14 title. He has now won multiple titles and has helped College to secure Canterbury and South Island team wins. Junior Davis Cup While juggling NCEA Physics, Chemistry, Calculus, French, and English at College, Jack remains focused on a professional tennis career, aiming to travel the world, and play for New Zealand. He also hopes to win a sports scholarship to a top university in the United States to further his opportunities and education. For Jack, tailoring his preparation, training hard, and staying engaged and positive on the court all adds up to being his best. While he knows he has the talent, he also understands that it requires determination and resilience to stay in the game while mastering the mindset to succeed. “I constantly strive to push myself to my limits and playing tennis and going to College has allowed me to do this.”
“Playing in the three ITF tournaments in Asia has been my best tennis experience so far,” Jack says. “Training in that hot and humid environment and facing a top-300 player was incredible. I came back so much stronger. Against those high-level players, your game becomes so much better.” In April 2024, he featured in two U18 ITF tournaments in Fiji, highlighting the importance of “playing good – often older – players in order to lift your own game”. The genesis of that talent was discovered on the courts of the Sumner Tennis Club when – at age nine – his tennis skills were noticed by then head coach Lynn O’Dell. “My father played tennis and my parents put me in the Hot Shots Tennis programme,” he recalls. “That was where it started and
then developing my skills with Lynn O'Dell. She told my parents that I had potential and gave me my first lesson when I was about age nine. I had two forehands when I started out, so that was changed to a forehand and a backhand. “I always loved the sport and started playing in tournaments when I was about 10 or 11. I just loved being on the court and enjoyed the competitiveness of the game. At 12, I moved to a new coach, (2019 Tennis NZ high performance coach of the year) Andrew Falck. However, Lynn still checks in with me, which is great. “I train up to four times a week with Andrew at Wilding Park. From about 11, I started travelling to small towns to compete. Then my tennis career stepped up after I reached the U12 doubles final at the nationals age group in 2019.
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