Year 10 Columba College student Erin O'Neill won the U16 Ashburton Junior Doubles tennis open with partner Jess Aldridge recently, and brought the trophy home to Dunedin.

The Tennis Open in Ashburton was held over three days at Labour weekend, and 15-year old Erin O'Neill paired up with her Timaru pal Jess Aldridge to take out the doubles title. After meeting through sport some time ago, Erin and Jess regularly play together in tournaments, and by the sounds of it, are a formidable force on the tennis court. Both girls making the final of the singles competition, with Jess winning the match and taking out the singles title for 2020.

Erin is a keen tennis player and an important member of the Columba College tennis programme. With players such as Erin, rising young star Aminah Ahmad, and our fantastic Teacher in Charge of tennis, Ms Chantal Hillier, we hope to grow the tennis programme here at Columba over the years ahead. 

Columba has 9 doubles teams entered in the Thursday afternoon schools competition at Logan Park (Years 9-13), and Jim Hoffman offers coaching sessions for our primary aged students on a Thursday afternoon in the school gymnasium (Terms 1 & 4). 

Four Columba students (Erin, Bethany Nicholson, Anise Maclean and Phoebe O'Donnell) attended the South Island Secondary School's Tennis Champs in Timaru earlier this year, and found this to be a wonderful experience. With the emerging talent seen on the tennis courts at Columba, we have high hopes that our programme will only get stronger over the years ahead.  

Photo Credit: Thank you to The Star, and reporter Jessica Wilson for the permission to use the photo of Erin in our newsletter.