Tobiah Goodchild fought from a set down to claim his maiden under-18 boys title after overcoming Tristan Pettit in a titanic three-hour final at the Back to School tennis tournament, which concluded at WER Joell Tennis Stadium on Sunday.

Pettit took the first set 6-4 before Goodchild clinched the second 6-3. The third set was a tight contest, eventually won by Goodchild 7-6 on a tiebreaker.

“Winning my first under-18 tournament was a really difficult experience, but I am extremely happy that I was able to get the win,” Goodchild told The Royal Gazette.

“My match against Tristan was very strenuous with the humid weather and heat. It added to the uncertainty of how I was going to hold up physically, because the day before I had a cross country race, then I played two matches afterwards, so I started the match with my legs feeling very heavy.

“Tristan won the first set 6-4 and I was feeling really exhausted and started cramping, but I managed to take the second set 6-3.

“Then I was cramping up very badly and ended up going down 5-2 in the third set and facing two match points.

“Thankfully, God gave me a burst of strength and with some resilience, I fought back to make it 6-5 in my favour and even had a match point.

“I unfortunately wasn’t able to close out at that opportunity and Tristan brought it back to 6-6, so we had to play a tie-break.

“I got some electrolytes in to try and ease down the cramping and closed out the tie-break. After the three-hour match, we were both exhausted and had extreme cramp.”

Pettit rued not taking advantage of his dominance against his Bermuda Junior Davis Cup team-mate.

“I am pleased with my tournament performance, although I wish I had capitalised on my match points today,” the 15-year-old.

“Tobiah fought hard and well. He is a formidable opponent, we play together overseas often and today we met on different sides of the court.”

Due to the physical demands of his encounter with Pettit, Goodchild was forced to forfeit his under-16 final against Jadon Spriggs, leading to his opponent being awarded the match on a walkover.

“I unfortunately had to forfeit the under-16 final match against Jadon Spriggs,” the 16-year-old said.

“It was a little bit upsetting as I would have loved to have won both age categories, but my body was in no position to play.

“I tried to ice, took in some salts and got into the air-conditioning to help rejuvenate, but it proved futile as my legs started to have spasms.”

Chloe McBrearty triumphed 6-1, 6-0, over Arianna Parra to secure the girls under-14 title. McBrearty also reigned supreme in the under-12 event, which was played in a round-robin format.

Hasan Khan was triumphant against Manuel Maldonado, with a 7-6, 6-2 victory in the boys under-14 title decider. Trystan Thompson defeated Ollie Anderson 6-3, 6-3, in the boys under-12 final.

A total of 34 rising stars participated in the annual tournament that was played over four days.

Sophie Campeau, one of the tournament’s committee members, thanked AXA XL for the global commercial insurance company’s continued support of the event.

“We would like to thank AXA XL for once again sponsoring this event,” she said. “We sincerely appreciate their ongoing support for youth sports.

“We were happy to have some new entries, particularly among the girls. The matches were really competitive and we've noted an increase in the quality of play since our last sanctioned tournament.

“You can tell that the players have been working hard this summer. It was great to see them showcase great skill and sportsmanship.

“We were lucky not to have any rain, but the humidity really made it hard, particularly in the matches that were long on Saturday and Sunday.”