2025 Junior Australian Tour

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00

This story was kindly provided by a parent on the tour.

This year has passed quickly, again we travelled to Brisbane to participate in 3 high-level competitive tennis tournaments. Firstly, the Churchie Junior 28th June – 1st July, Secondly the Rod Laver Lead-in Junior 3rd July – 7th July and Thirdly the Rod Laver Queensland 8th July – 12th July. This year our tour group was significantly smaller with only 3 boys attending. We had some unfortunate last-minute withdrawals due to severe illness and back injuries.

We had the pleasure of travelling with Dylan Zhang from Tennis Northern in Albany, Noah Jones from Mairtown and Nelson Freeman from Kerikeri. Dylan is coached by yet another high-performance veteran Jeff Simpson. Jeff would be extremely proud of Dylan’s emotional behavior; in the past this is something Dyl has really struggled with. He showed confidence, dignity and resilience. We were so proud of him, so should the coaching team at Albany alongside his parents, he really was a delight and the hard work getting his emotions in check really paid off. Great work Dylan, keep it up, now this is a positive expectation. We then have Pete’s two favourite rambunctious teenagers Noah and Nelson. Pete gets these 2 characters and really understands them, does he, he does a good job showing it - huh. These two boys keep us all on our toes, they also keep pushing each other to be better. Both boys adore their Coach Pete who demands respect this is why the relationship works well from Coach to Student – the respect is mutual but there is only 1 boss, it is the older dude with the big fishing hat and flipflops that leads charge. They all played tough tennis and lessons were learnt. It was 17 days of hard tennis with more matches won than lost. Pete runs a very scheduled ship with the boys’ needs a priority. Every-night there is a hot home cooked meal to nourish the weary souls with an early bedtime of 7.45. Every morning after breakfast, the team make their own lunches of fresh ham rolls with a salad combination and fresh fruit to keep their belly’s full, then off to the courts for an early morning training session.

I will not forget the “Amazing Fannins” the 4 beautiful sisters who alongside their parents left Whangarei for Brisbane. They used to be coached under Pete at Mairtown. Lily was near the top of her age group in New Zealand and now ranks 5 in Australia, well this was before her broken foot, but she is climbing the ranks quickly to hold her position.

Peter is a very keen fisherman and encourages the boys to fish in their free time if they want too. There were two goals for the trip this year the first one was to play better than the day before and the second one was to catch a bull shark. One goal was accomplished, the boys played better each day. Saying that maybe 2 goals were accomplished, as the story goes, we do believe that a gigantic sea creature stole the coaches loved fishing stick. The boys were happily fishing then there was a “Argh No” moment when the fishing rod was swaying down the river, which we believe was Mr Bull Shark or maybe not. One of the more experienced young fishers who was in charge took the responsibility and refunded Coach Pete a brand-new rod set up – another lesson was learnt amongst the tears of disbelief of losing the Coach’s fishing rod.

Coach Peter Stenberg is the mastermind behind these trips with 30 years of travelling overseas he delivers passion, drive and selflessness. The kids come first and that clearly shows on how he runs his overseas trips. He is a very resourceful performance coach with decades of experience. He has taken juniors to the top of New Zealand rankings which is special especially where Northland is based geographically. Coach Pete demands respect, it clearly shows when delivering a message. Peter thinks out the box but mainly he thinks of the juniors and getting them to a high level so they can attend a US College and beyond. He says Tennis is a marathon not a sprint – hard work is the only way to get better it takes years of grinding to get the results.

I would like to thank Hayden and Karen Craven for their continuous support to Pete and the Juniors in Northland. Kerikeri Tennis Club and Striders Kerikeri for their support to Nelson. To all the families, coaches and hitting partners there are many thank-you. Mairtown Tennis Club, Julia Sims, Rod Harris, Daniel Hammond and Mike Clapshaw for also supporting Noah and Nelson on their journey.

The biggest shout out goes to Coach Pete, you are a unique individual, thank-you.