By AMANDA DE MORAES
A first year member of the Malden High School tennis team and future member of Brown University’s Class of 2018, Kevin Banh has been an avid tennis player since 7th grade. He originally began playing as a result of his friends who played tennis; despite usually playing basketball, Bahn decided to opt for tennis instead one day and ended up really enjoying the game. Once he started, Bahn would play nearly every day in the summer with friends but when freshman year of high school started, he “drifted away from tennis and focused more on track.”
Bahn states that one of the many things he has learned from tennis is the importance of “sportsmanship and dedication.” In his opinion, tennis is a “gentleman’s sport and has taught [him] much about respect,” as well as the importance of support for ones team, which he experienced this season after injuring himself along with fellow teammate and sophomore Edward Gui.
From being part of the team, Bahn has been able to experience the extreme competitiveness of the sport. Nobody on the team “ever accepts defeat” and it is critical that each player can learn from their mistakes. Because of this, everyone on the team pushes one another to do their best and to improve, which allows them to win “tough games in which [Malden] is down.” The easiest part of playing tennis for Bahn was learning the forehand because he claimed it just felt natural to him and the hardest part about tennis was definitely consistency and the backhand which he still continues to work on today.
In regards to next year, Bahn will be attending the prestigious Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and will be majoring in applied mathematics. He hopes to continue playing tennis in college, although much more casually than he does now, perhaps on an intramural team. Tennis is a sport in which an individual is able to grow with, as Bahn has. Although excited for what the future will bring, Banh will also dearly miss MHS. He stated that once the year comes to a close, he will no longer be seeing friends who he now sees on a regular basis, as they will all be going their separate ways.
Bahn advises underclassmen to continue working hard and also to simply enjoy high school. He also stated that it is in their best interest to “try their best to challenge themselves whether it’s physically in sports or academically in the classroom.” Bahn believes that it is never good to be satisfied with being just “mediocre at something, always strive to be the best.” While Bahn begins his life outside of high school he wishes the team luck as they continue in their seasons to come.
