Tonga’s national 7s and tennis teams have won bronze medals at the 2017 Vanuatu Mini-Games.

The Tonga 7s team won bronze on Saturday December 9 after beating the Solomon Islands 24 – 19. The vital win secures a place for Tonga at the 2018 Rugby 7s World Cup. Samoa won the gold medal of 7s competition after upsetting Fiji 14 – 7 in the final.

During the course of the 7s competition, Tonga defeated pool opponents Vanuatu (36 – 7), Nauru (32 – 0) and Wallis and Futuna (33 – 0). Tonga suffered its only pool loss to Samoa (24 – 7) as well as a semi-final loss to Fiji (41 – 7).

In tennis, brothers Matavao and Semisi Fanguna won bronze for Tonga in the men’s doubles after upsetting New Caledonians Julien Delaplane and Maceo Rouas in two sets (7-5, 5-2).

Matavao Fanguna stated, “Our performance was absolutely amazing. I just want to thank everybody for the hard work, and especially to god. I have trained so hard for this and this is the first medal I’ve achieved in my whole life.”