Wednesday 7 May 2025
The Premier Boys Tennis team completed their 2025 season with a convincing 5-1 victory over ACG Parnell on Wednesday 9 April to finish fifth in the Auckland competition. If you consider that three of the schools that finished ahead of King's in the Auckland competition all finished in the top five in New Zealand, the performance of the team this year should be applauded.
The King's team this year was very young with three Year 10 students, two Year 11's and one Year 12 in its squad and the prospects look exciting for the future. Against ACG Parnell, the team was missing top seed and Oscar Chesterman (Year 10, Averill) through illness, but the team still turned in a top performance in the fading light to finish the season.
For the first time this year, King's won both doubles matches with top doubles seeds Jaedon Gin (Year 12, Greenbank) and Jacob Bargh (Year 10, Marsden) showing composure in the crucial points to win a thrilling tie-breaker 4-2, 0-4, 10-8 while Harry Driscoll (Year 10, Selwyn) and Ben Donaldson (Year 11, School) dominated their game 5-4, 4-2.
In the singles, Ben Donaldson played well but failed to convert the crucial points and went down in straight sets, while there were comfortable wins for the stylish Jaedon Gin 4-1, 4-1 and determined Jacob Bargh 4-0, 4-0. Performance of the day though was from Harry Driscoll playing his first tennis match for over a year after a long-term injury who showed tremendous fighting spirit and patience to fight back to win his singles. Harry lost the first set 0-4 and was trailing by two in the second set before rallying to win it 5-3 and then edge the tie-breaker 10-7.
A fantastic finish to the season for this young team!