Bond’s rising tennis squad claimed bronze at the UniSport Nationals after months of hard work came down to one key match at the Miami Tennis Club.
Bond captain Georgios Asimakopoulos stood with his hands over his eyes as the Bull Sharks’ fate hung in the balance in their semi-final clash against Monash University.
Trailing 2-1 after the singles, courtesy of the Bull Sharks’ top-ranked player Alec Braund who had gone undefeated throughout the tournament, Bond needed to win both doubles matches to advance to the final but were bundled out when Monash claimed victory in the first rubber.
While many would be thrilled with a third-place finish, having their campaign cut short was a hard pill to swallow for Asimakopoulos, who’d been dreaming of winning gold for over a year.
“I set our team a pretty big goal to win it this year,” said the Bachelor of Policy, Philosophy and Economics student.
“While it hurt pretty bad to get knocked out in the semis, I’m also very proud of our group’s progress and our professionalism throughout the tournament.”
In last year’s UniSport Nationals the Bull Sharks tennis team managed to secure seventh place in Division 1, despite limited training.
Since realising their potential, Asimakopoulos and his team adopted a weekly training schedule and began receiving coaching from former professional player Kaden Hensel.
“The improvement and development that all of us have experienced over the past year has been a huge reward in itself,” Asimakopoulos said.
“Working towards a collective goal has pushed all of our tennis to the next level and at the end of the day we’ve all become better players because of it.”
Asimakopoulos is soon to graduate but his chances of gold aren’t over as he intends to begin an MBA and try again at next year’s UniSport Nationals.
Sharing his ambition of a 2024 National Championship is Bond’s Sports Leadership Scholarship recipient and Bachelor of Exercise Sports Science student Braund.
During last week’s tournament, Braund repeated the perfect streak he made in 2022 by going undefeated throughout his singles campaign.
Braund agrees the Bull Sharks’ tennis strength is a reflection of their collective effort to better themselves as athletes.
“The level of our tennis has improved so much since last year,” Braund said.
“We trained so hard in the lead-up and it really showed on the court.
“We played some great tennis.”
Other members of the team were Christopher Corrao, Adam Daggmarr, Callum Stringfellow and Aidan Kitchin.
“Chris came from college tennis in the US and his experience really carried us along,” Braund said.
“Same thing for Callum, Adam and Aidan, they have both been great players for most of their careers and it was really good to get to play with all of them in this tournament.”