SPORT Tennis
MiC: Ben Vink A Squad Manager: Ben Vink A Squad Coach: Matt Meredith School Coach: Hugo Nurse-Strang Captain: Will Schneideman 2019 was another very successful year for Christ’s College tennis. The highlight of the year being the third place that we achieved at nationals. This remarkable achievement has really confirmed our place as one of the outstanding tennis schools in New Zealand. The beginning of the year saw the A squad joined by Year 12 student Tom Downs from Auckland and Year 9 Lucca Wiseman. Our greatest challenge in the last two years has been making sure our squad have all been getting meaningful matches. This year we entered two teams in the Canterbury Schools Premier Grade, six teams in the B grade, four at Year 10 and a massive 10 teams at Year 9 in the Canterbury secondary schools’ Wednesday competition. In addition, 17 senior boys play in a non- competition group on Mondays and receive coaching on Wednesdays. The top squad – Will Schneideman (captain), Liam Adams, Edwin
The nationals competition at Wilding Park was a tense but exciting tournament. We were at home for the second year in a row. As defeated finalists in 2018 we knew we had a good shot. We had a run of unfortunate luck in the lead-up to the tournament, however, with our number two Liam Adams having glandular fever over the summer break, and our number one Will Schneideman breaking his wrist.
was clear he was in pain and that he was bravely fighting through it for the team. We went into the tournament as second seed, but as a result of our injuries and illness we knew that would be hard to maintain. We set the more realistic goal of reaching the semi-finals and seeing where that would take us. The pool was made up of Botany Downs Secondary College, St Andrew’s College and Hamilton Boys’ High School. We defeated StAC 5–1, HBHS 4–2 and lost to Botany Downs 2–4. This was enough to qualify us for the semi-finals. In the semi-final we met our arch-rival St Kentigern College and were defeated 1–5. We then met Botany Downs again in the play-off for third and fourth, which we won.
It has to be mentioned how courageous Will was in this
tournament. He entered the A side as a Year 9 and will leave College with the best track record at team nationals of any player in recent times. As captain he was determined he was not going to put our shot for a title at risk and fought valiantly right throughout the tournament. It
Dargue, Tom Downs, Jarrad Hill, Jasper Johnson, Jenner
Johnson, Nathan McKenzie, Nant Prachuabmoh, Nont Prachuabmoh and Nick Schneideman – performed incredibly well this year. The goal was once again to qualify to be one of the top four teams at nationals and progress from there. The squad trained together throughout the entire year with skills coach Matt Meredith. They also worked with strength and conditioning coach Kris Miller.
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Christ’s College Canterbury
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