Both Matty Finn and Austen Keni have both been stonking it on the junior stage. In March they both represented Tauranga Boys College and took the team to third place at the national secondary school championships! Matty captained the team and led from the front by going the competition undefeated. Third in the country is a great achievement so huge congrats to Austen & Matty as well as Luis for his wonderful coaching (developing a strong technical foundation does pay off! Who knew).
It's fantastic to see the juniors coming through and as a club we're proud of both how Matty and Austen juniors compete, as well as the fantastic role models these young men are in terms of how they conduct themselves.
As well as this, Austen has been busy in Term 1 travelling around the Pacific & South East Asia playing tennis.
His first trip saw him head to Samoa in February to represent Samoa at the Eastern Pacific Regional Competion. He won the boys U16 title and earned a place to the 2nd leg in Fiji (Pacific Oceania Junior Competition ) in April.
The next trip in March, saw him travel to Kuching in Malaysia to represent the Pacific Oceania Boys (U16) at the Junior Davis cup pre qualifiers. This week-long tournament featured 22 teams from the Asia-Oceania region competing for spots in the final qualifying event in Kazakhstan later this year. They faced some stiff competition and didn’t qualify but had a great experience meeting other keen players from around the Asia- Pac region.
After a quick turnaround Austen was then off to Pacific Oceania Junior Competition (Fiji) in April where he finished 9th in the singles and 2nd in doubles. The travel experience has given Austen a taste of the physical and mental fortitude required to be successful in tennis as well as the areas he needs to work on.
Austen will focus on training, tournaments and school over the coming months preparing for the next step in his tennis journey. Austen and his whanau would like to say a huge thank you to those who have supported and hit with Austen over the past few years, and to his coach Luis Luna.
