by Ashton Tan (17S06J), Boys’ Captain, and Ng Qin Yi (17S07C), Girls’ Captain
We are but a small, humble CCA of people who really just enjoy whacking the green furry ball. You’ll find most of us behind the parade square, hanging around the tennis courts.
We train there thrice a week (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays), with two training sessions with our coaches and one for self training. Our training includes court work, followed by fitness training.
Our achievements in this year’s interschool season include: the Girls’ ‘A’ division champions and Boys’ second runner’s up. We are training hard to achieve a double championship title next year.
Though it would be a tough road ahead, we are looking forward to the next season. One exciting that we will be looking forward to are our biennial overseas trip to Taiwan! This trip would include us going to there to train and play some friendly matches with the Taiwanese players. Through this trip, we will be exposed to the different styles of playing, which we hope will give us experience to strive for our goals in the ‘A’ division interschool for 2017.
Even though tennis may seem to be a very individualistic sport, our team cohesion is very important to us in winning the title for the school. To us, it is important that we have a strong team spirit, which includes us encouraging each other during training and putting in our very best effort in every fitness training.
We believe that with each others’ support, we are able to train harder and be stronger. When competing, we may be in our separate courts, but we walk in knowing that we have each other as we fight on. Tennis itself may be an individual sport, but to Raffles Tennis, it’s about being a team.
Our CCA is like a second family to us, and this sport is also a source of many life lessons. Through this CCA, we learn the importance of discipline in whatever we do.
We realise how influential close friends, and that the people around us, are towards our attitude in life. We learn that life can be full of ups and downs, but just like in a tennis match, as long as we stay strong mentally and remember that we are not alone, we will still be able to turn a negative situations into a positive outcome.
The vigorous trainings, hot sun and early Saturday mornings will not last forever, but the lessons we learned, the friendships we forge, the experience we share – these are what we will take with us for the rest of our lives.
