Tennis Report

S. J. Wensley

On Saturday the 1sts played Newington away. The boys seemed unbothered by the swirling wind and started strongly with aggressive volleying. After the doubles Shore led by 2 matches to 1. In singles, Sam Wensley and Oliver Wilcox went on first, and set the tone for the singles. Both boys played high quality matches and won in tight straight sets, hence Shore led 4-1. However, Newington’s team proved to have good depth, and they fought back. Nonetheless, Zac Little dug deep to come back from a set down to clinch a match that lasted nearly 3 hours. Hence, Shore was able to win 5 matches to 4. Newington were coming second on the GPS ladder, and so Shore made a statement to the rest of the teams with this win. 

The 2nds played Newington at home. They brought a lot of confidence into the match, only having lost two of their last seven matches, including beating Newington convincingly away. This was shown through a dominant display from Connor Fung and Chris Mathur, who won their doubles matches in dominant fashion: 6-1 6-0. However, Shore went down 2-1 after the doubles. Shore attempted to fight back in singles, particularly Matt Hogg who won 6-4 2-6 6-2. This is Matt’s fourth victory in a row – all in three sets – displaying the true Shore fight the team strives for. Jimmy’s Nicholas’ fight is also to be commended. On his debut he was able to stop his opponent from serving out the match, securing half a point for Shore due to running out of time. Unfortunately, the Newington effort got the better of them and they won 5.5 to 3.5.

Starting this year, all Shore home games have been filmed by 1-3-5 analytics. This will provide the Shore boys with insight into the tactical errors they have made, allowing them to play better quality matches. This new investment should improve the quality of the already greatly improving Shore Tennis.