{"id":17279,"date":"2026-05-18T09:28:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/braden-lynch-becomes-first-tennis-champ-from-lincoln-in-38-years-the-providence-journal\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T09:28:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T09:28:31","slug":"braden-lynch-becomes-first-tennis-champ-from-lincoln-in-38-years-the-providence-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/braden-lynch-becomes-first-tennis-champ-from-lincoln-in-38-years-the-providence-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"Braden Lynch becomes first tennis champ from Lincoln in 38 years – The Providence Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

PAWTUCKET \u2013\u00a0Sunday afternoon brought a breakthrough for Braden Lynch, the first boys tennis state singles champion from Lincoln in 38 years.\u00a0
The sophomore was impressive throughout on the hardcourts at Slater Park, taking care of Bishop Hendricken\u00a0standout Luca Testa in straight sets.\u00a0
Lynch never appeared anything but comfortable under the warm sunshine and in front of the crowd gathered outside the fence, posting a 6-3, 6-2 triumph in 75 minutes.\u00a0He became the first member of the Lions to lift the trophy since Tom Evans did the honors in 1988 and just the third sophomore to claim the crown in the last two decades.\u00a0
\u201cI\u2019m proud to do it for my school,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0proud to do it for myself. Proud to do it for my coaches, for my family \u2013\u00a0I’m\u00a0just\u00a0very proud\u00a0right now.\u201d\u00a0
David Levy and Liam Levy took even less time to become the first\u00a0boys\u00a0doubles champions from East Greenwich, racing to a 6-4, 6-0 victory over the La Salle tandem of Gavin Britt and Connor Cavanagh. That match wrapped up while Lynch was taking full command against\u00a0Testa, using multiple breaks of serve in the second set to build what turned out to be an insurmountable lead.\u00a0
\u201cLuca\u2019s obviously\u00a0a great player, so I knew I was going to have to play\u00a0pretty much at\u00a0my best if I was going to beat him,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cI ended up playing\u00a0pretty well.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cI thought my forehand was able to dictate, and I was\u00a0very happy\u00a0with how I served throughout the match. I was able to keep that in mind.\u201d
Lynch held at love to take the opening set and closed the match with what\u00a0became\u00a0a familiar sequence by the end of this one. He\u00a0approached the net\u00a0behind a forehand down the line and put away an overhead smash\u00a0to clinch it. Lynch lived up to his No. 1 seed in the process and delivered on his own\u00a0expectations entering the season.\u00a0
\u201cI definitely did think I could,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cThat was in my mind from the start of the year \u2013 to be able to do this.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0great to see it come to life.\u201d
Testa needed three sets to\u00a0eliminate\u00a0North Kingstown\u2019s Will Michaud in the quarterfinals before dropping just three games in his semifinal meeting with Barrington\u2019s Gabe Anderson. Lynch traveled the more difficult path,\u00a0beating South Kingstown\u2019s Jonah Plonsky in straight sets in the quarterfinals before matching up with La Salle\u2019s Andrew Smith in the semifinals. Lynch dropped the opening set to\u00a0the defending champion\u00a0before rallying to a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.\u00a0
\u201cIt definitely gave me a whole bunch of confidence,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cHe\u2019s\u00a0obviously\u00a0a great player\u00a0with a huge serve. He has a huge wingspan.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0hard to pass.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cI felt that I was able to play super well in that match, and that definitely gave me some confidence going into this one.\u201d\u00a0
Lynch was\u00a0immediately\u00a0penciled in as Lincoln\u2019s top singles player as a\u00a0freshman\u00a0and\u00a0lost to Smith in the quarterfinals. His offseason work included time in the gym and some sessions with a mental skills coach to sharpen his focus. Lynch\u00a0joined Kyle Burke (South Kingstown, 2007) and Max Schmidhauser (Classical, 2018) among\u00a0recent\u00a0second-year\u00a0winners of this event.\u00a0
\u201cIt was a ton of work, to be honest,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cA lot of time on court. A lot of work in the gym, speed \u2013\u00a0pretty much doing\u00a0everything you could think of to better my game.\u201d \u00a0
Levy and Levy were surprise finalists in 2024 as the No. 2 doubles team for the Avengers. They fell to Gabe Anderson and Bryce Kupperman in straight sets, as the Barrington duo\u00a0put an end to a storybook run. Levy and Levy authored a different finish this time thanks to their steady play both\u00a0from\u00a0the baseline and\u00a0at\u00a0the net.\u00a0
It had been more than 40 years since\u00a0two\u00a0brothers teamed up to win a doubles championship in the state. Gordie Ernst and Bobby Ernst were the last to do it from Cranston East, capturing three\u00a0straight\u00a0from 1983-85.\u00a0The tournament format has since changed \u2013 Gordie Ernst was also a four-time state singles champion, and doubles entries are now based on the team ladder rather than\u00a0a\u00a0selection\u00a0off the roster.\u00a0
bkoch@providencejournal.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>
On\u00a0X: @BillKoch25<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PAWTUCKET \u2013\u00a0Sunday afternoon brought a breakthrough for Braden Lynch, the first boys tennis state singles champion from Lincoln in 38 years.\u00a0The sophomore was impressive throughout on the hardcourts at Slater Park, taking care of Bishop Hendricken\u00a0standout Luca Testa in straight sets.\u00a0Lynch never appeared anything but comfortable under the warm sunshine and in front of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}