SA Challenge begins with a win for the University of Adelaide

 

 

The SA Challenge officially kicked off for 2025 on Friday 28^th of March, with the tennis competition held on the beautiful outdoor hard courts at the Millswood Tennis Centre under a perfect Autumn sky.

Across the three universities, a total of nine men and six women competed. Men were split across two groups in a round robin tournament, with the highest-placed players from each group competing in a finals series. Women played in a round robin tournament to determine the champion and runners-up. All matches had a 40-minute time limit and consisted of one professional set where the first to six games would be deemed the winner. If both players reached six games it would go to a tiebreak, and if matches exceeded the allotted time the result would be deemed a draw. Three points were awarded for a win, two points for a draw and one point for a loss.

The University of Adelaide was represented by men's players Manko Law, Aaron Chiu, Matthew Pinyon and Nick Davies, and by Mikaila Thomson, Sarah Beagley and Alexandra Comitis in the women's competition.

After a hard-fought round robin tournament in the men's competition, the championship match was an all-University of Adelaide affair, with number one seed Matt Pinyon pitted against fellow club teammate Nick Davies. The final proved to be an electrifying affair, but in the end Pinyon edged Davies 6-3 to take the men's title. In the third-place playoff, University of Adelaide's Manko Law made it a podium sweep with a win over UniSA's top-seeded player.

 

The women's side of the draw saw hotly contested group matches to determine final placings, and at their conclusion the final standings saw Mikaila Thomson finish on the podium in 3^rd position.

At the conclusion of the event, all universities were on equal points after final standings, but after a countback on complete player points, the University of Adelaide retained the tennis shield for the second year in a row!

 

All student players competed with great determination, endurance, skill and poise, and represented the university with gusto. They should all be extremely proud of their efforts, and their success in getting the University of Adelaide off to the best possible start in its defence of the SA Challenge Cup.