Canterbury High School Tennis Team defeat King’s School in four hour thriller

On Wednesday 21st March, our Appeti Tennis School students represented the school in the opening round of the under 18 national competition. Our opponents were King’s School who brought over an experienced team.

Despite being a younger side, our players performed superbly and after four hours of gruelling tennis that was played in tough wintery conditions, we fought hard to claim a 4-2 victory.

The players who represented the school so well were as follows.

1. Oliver Richards

2. Kai Van Roon Collins

3. Seb McDonnell-Palomares

4. Ulrich Neinaber

Below is a fuller report written by Oliver Richards who obviously has a flair for sports journalism.

Please congratulate the team when you see them around school.

Glanville Cup

Canterbury High School ‘v’ King’s School

At 3pm, a confident and well prepared Canterbury High team marched on to court, after a light practice and a motivational team talk. A nervous King’s school came rolling in, wary that we comfortably beat them last year in this tournament. 3:15 came and both Canterbury’s doubles pairs were ready to put in a strong performance, however King’s School were in no mood to hang around as they knew an early finish would result in a trip to Dominoes, but Canterbury had other ideas. Ulrich and Kai, playing together in the Glanville Cup for the first time, had a small slip up in the first set, however reset and played some aggressive and inspiring doubles to win the second set and take the match into a tie-break. The boys kept calm and were continuously motivated by John-Mark, with his frequent pumping on the side-line, which allowed them to take control of the match. 9-8 up in the tie-break and almost across the line, the King’s partnership suffered from a severe case of “concrete elbow” and hit a double fault giving Canterbury a 1-0 lead.

Ollie and Seb partnered up as the number 1 doubles pair for the first time and faced a couple of six foot giants, who regrettably forgot to bring their binoculars, so struggled to see the powerful and tricky shots that Seb was hitting them with. Clearly intimidated by Seb and his continuous renditions of “come on”, the Kings team had no answer and the Canterbury boys took the first set on a tie-break, won with a body shot, just to add to the pain. King’s fought back with some clever plays and a few too many unreturnable serves, equalling up the match. With great support, Ollie and Seb tried to wrestle the match in their favour, however a few costly errors and a great shot by the net cord and an unfortunate double fault handed the tie-break 10-7 to King’s. The score level at 1-1 going into the singles.

Ollie was straight back on court ready for his singles, fuelled by an emergency granola bar. He took control early on in the match and never looked back playing some confident and classy tennis, although looked a bit shaky when his opponent took him to the one deuce game. Realising Ulrich needed a bit of support, Ollie promptly and convincingly wrapped up the match as quick as possible without dropping a game, much to the delight of his opponent as a Dominoes was looking on the cards. But it wasn’t to be, as Ulrich, playing at number 3, was involved in a mammoth match up with an older, fairly experienced player. Ulrich took the first set playing some of his best and most relaxed tennis, meanwhile his opponent was thinking what he was going to have for tea; 6-1 the first set score. The King’s player soon woke up and had a big job in hand, however started slicing up some dirt, with a combination of backspin drop shots followed by a few cavemen like roars. After saving 5 match points in the second set, the King’s player showed resilience to claim the second set and that’s when the mind games begun.

Into another tie-break we went, both players looking in need of a break, but the match continued. Ulrich lost the first few points, although performed a great hustle to win a point

with a broken string. This seemed to distract the King’s player and Ulrich applied more pressure. The rest of the Canterbury team provided great support and gave Ulrich a small boost, which proved to be enough as he closed out the match 10-6 in the tie-break. Then came on Seb (speedy Gonzalez,) who was once again playing the tallest player in the fixture. Seb played some excellent tennis and proved that size doesn’t matter, as he was running h

is opponent all over the court, from corner to corner, showing very encouraging signs of amazing tennis. However, Ivo karlovic was in no mood to mess around and took a tightly contested first set 6-4. Seb never gave up and showed why he deserved to be in the team, but the two curries from last week were taking their toll on him; this was Seb’s first day playing for a week. None the less he put in a valiant display, but in the end the King’s giant came out on top and comfortably won the second set after a light malfunction at the end of the second set that briefly disrupted play. Seb is now recovering from a neck strain after having to continuously look up at his colossal opponent. 3-2 Canterbury lead.

This meant all the pressure was put on the shoulders of the little man, Kai Van Roon Collins, knowing a win would give Canterbury the overall win and a place in round two. Due to the time, the final singles match was played on one of the inside courts, which clearly didn’t faze the Essex warrior. In fact he thrived on the opportunity and played absolutely outstanding tennis; he even threw in the occasional serve and volley just to add to his classy performance. The Canterbury squad lit up the atmosphere; meanwhile King’s school were inside choosing from the array of salad sandwiches, while their teammate was trying to fend off the storm that was coming from KVRC’S end of the court. Although Kai is only 12, he was playing in an 18 under tournament, but rose to the challenge and played undoubtedly the match of the day. Kai decided that he was only going to play off the lines and left his opponent wrong footed several times. He looked composed and confident throughout the match, however showed a brief moment of frustration, when he made his first unforced error 5-2 up in the second set. Match point, was without doubt the point of the match, as Kai hit an aggressive served followed up with a roger Federer like volley winner into the opposite corner, sealing the victory for the Canterbury warriors 4-2 and into the next round.

A great all round performance by Canterbury, however a courageous performance by Kings. Canterbury walked away with their heads up high and Kings walked away with their heads down, looking at what they could have had off the Dominoes menu. An exceptional team effort by Canterbury, bring on the next round!