Report: Senior Tennis Quadrangular Tournament
Four members of the Premier 1 Tennis team travelled to Hamilton to compete in the 44th Senior Tennis Quadrangular. This traditional tournament is contested between Auckland Grammar School, Hamilton Boys’ High School, Palmerston North Boys’ High School and Wellington College, who won in won in 2020, when this tournament last took place.
The team had their first match against Palmerston North Boys’ High School and played exceptionally well to win all of their doubles and singles matches without losing a single set. This meant a winning score of 8-0.
The second match was against Wellington College. With hot conditions and having to overcome some physical fatigue, the team played a superb game. Despite Wellington pushing the boys hard and Bland being taken to a super-tiebreak in his singles match, the School won all of their matches to win the contest 8-0.
The team played hosts Hamilton Boys’ High School on Day 2 of the Tournament, a very tough match which would decide the winning team for 2023.
Beginning the day with the doubles matches, Form 3 student Z. Wu and Form 4 student L. M. Bland played some intelligent Tennis, but struggled to overcome the power of the Hamilton duo and lost their match 6-2, 6-3.
In the other doubles match, Form 5 students B. J. M. Archbold and H. S. M. Bassett started strongly with some solid teamplay and took the first set 6-4. Hamilton changed up their game-plan and fought back to take the second set. The Grammar team then produced an impressive super-tiebreak winning 10-4 to take the win.
The score was 1-1 going into the singles matches, with Grammar needing at least two singles ties to have a chance of bringing home the Barry Schmidt Shield. Despite a shoulder injury, L. M. Bland played a superb round to win 6-1, 6-2.
Z. Wu was having an extraordinarily tight encounter with the number one player from Hamilton Boys which included some high-quality extended rallies. A very close first set went to a tiebreak, with Wu falling just short. With the momentum on his side, the Hamilton player won the second set and with it the match.
With the score now 2-2, B. J. M. Archbold and H. S. M. Bassett battled hard for every point but Hamilton were too strong and took the overall tournament win, the first time they have won the competition since its inception. Auckland Grammar was second overall ahead of Wellington College in third and Palmerston North in fourth.
Congratulations to the team and to Master in Charge R. Daniel for his guidance and support of the team, who now look to the two-day Champion of Champions Tournament beginning today.