DAVIS CUP DELIVERS EXCITEMENT

When Canada played Japan in Davis Cup in Vancouver Mar 6 to 8 the expectation was that Canada should win but that the individual matches would be interesteing. And it was!

Day 1 went according to form. Milos Raonic defeated Tatsuma Ito Handily, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 to give Canada the lead. Then Japan tied things up when Kei Nishikori dispatched Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.

It was on day 2 that the excitement started to build.  On paper, the team of Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil  looked good for a routine win.  The wily veteran Nestor with so many doubles titles under his belt teamed with newest Canadian Grand Slam doubles winner, Pospisil. But Davis Cup ties and doubles matches don’t always go according to form, though the home team crowd can help players put forward their best play. Japan played the doubles team of Go Soeda and Yasutaka Uchiyama, neither of whom are ranked among the world’s top 200 doubles players. The Japanese duo put up a good fight and the rubber took more than three hours to complete. In the end the Canadians took the fifth set to end the 7-5, 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory and leave the team needing just one win to secure a place in the quarterfinals of the world group.

Day 3 saw one of the most awaited match ups take to the courts,  Milos Raonic # 6 in the world against Kei Nishikori who had recently risen to #4.  Only the final result disappointed the Canadian fans.  Milos took the first set 6-3, Kei took the second and third sets, 6-3 and 6-4 respectively, Milos sent the match to a fifth set by taking the fourth 6-2. Kei drew first blood in the 5^th set with a break against the dominant server to go ahead 2-1. Then Milos broke back in the sixth game to tie the set at 3 all and then go ahead 4-3 on serve. Nishikori was able to break Milos again in the lengthy ninth game when Milos’ second serve caught the top of the net and took a wild jump wide of the court for a double fault. Milos’ was unable to recover and the final set went to Japan, 6-4.

Vasek Pospisil then took to the court and played some progressively impressive and dominant tennis to beat Go Soeda 7-5,6-3,6-4 and carry Team Canada to the win.

The next Davis Cup tie will be held July 17 to 19 when Team Canada will travel to Belgium to play for a spot in the semi-finals.  Canada beat Belgium the last time the two countries met in Davis Cup, which was 102 years ago!

Photo of Vasek Pospisil and Daniel Nestor courtesy Peter Figura.

ONTARIO PROS RECOGNIZED

Several Ontario tennis professionals were recognised on February 26 when Tennis Canada and the Tennis Professionals Association (TPA) announced the recipients of the 2014 TPA Excellence Awards.

Ontario’s Ken Crosina, who has been the Head Pro at Mayfair West for the past three years, was the recipient of the Club Professional Excellence award. At Mayfair, Ken has significantly increased court bookings and registration numbers. Prior to joining Mayfair, Ken was Racquets Director at Oshawa Racquet Club for 14 years, and worked with Durham College and UOIT in Oshawa, designing the Campus Tennis Centre and running a high performance program which helped more than 50 kids move on to NCAA scholarships.

The Coaching Excellence honour was awarded to Bill Cowan of Ontario. Bill, a certified Coach 4 and Club Pro 2, has recently joined the Donalda Club as assistant tennis pro. He has a long history of successfully working with high performance players, going back as far as 1989 when he worked with Rene Simpson as she reached the Top 100 rankings. Working with Players Edge for many years, Bill helped develop many top players including Peter Polansky, Daniel Nestor, Maureen Drake, Gloria Liang, Carol Zhao, and Brayden Schnur. Most recently, he worked with Sofiya Babych who was crowned both U12 indoor national champion and U14 outdoor national champion in 2014.
The Donalda Club in Toronto tool the Year Round Facility Excellence award. With more than 500 tennis members, six indoor bubbled courts, and 12 outdoor courts, the club has regularly hosted indoor and outdoor senior national championships, ITF senior events, provincial tournaments, the Daniel Nestor Charity event and TPA workshops.

Brian Myers (see photo) was the recipient of the Course Facilitator Excellence Award. Brian has been involved in course facilitation for 12 years and has led or co-led over 30 courses. He is an excellent communicator, someone who makes all candidates feel at ease and who goes the extra mile to help them succeed.

The Paul & Joyce Chapnick Under 10 Development Coaching Scholarship, presented to a TPA coach under the age of 35, was given to Ontario’s Kyrylo Tabunshchyk, Director of progressive tennis at ACE Tennis in Burlington. ACE tennis is one of the biggest academies in Ontario for players between the ages of four and 10. Krylo has coached more than ten U8, U9, and U10 Ontario provincial champions and finalists and has organized more than 40 tournaments for those age groups.

Judy Murray was the keynote speaker for the TPA conference. Watch for an interview with Judy in the Spring issue of Ontario Tennis.
Photo: Brian Myers receives award from Ari Novick.

WINNERS CIRCLE

Congratulations to the players from Ontario who managed to add titles to their tennis resumes in the past month.  Here are a few who did well on the international scene.

Gabriela Dabrowski (right) and partner Alicja Rosolska of Poland won the doubles title at the Abierto Monterrey Afirme tournament (a  WTA event) played at the Sierra Madre Tennis Club in Monterrey, Mexico.  They won the lengthy final 6-3, 2-6, 10-3 against Australian sisters Anastasia and Arina Rodionova. Gabriela is currently ranked #41 in doubles and  179 in singles. Member of Canada’s Federation Cup Team.

Congratulations to Brindtha Ramasamy, seen here (centre) with Rexall Centre training partners Anca Craciun (left) & Bianca Andreescu (right). Brindtha recently captured two Grade 4 ITF Junior Championship titles. One in Mexico and one in El Salvador.

Daniel Nestor playing with India's Rohan Bopanna grabbed their second ATP title of the season by subduing Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi and Nenad Zimonjic in the Dubai Duty Free championships on Feb 28. The fourth seeded duo dispatched Nestor’s former partner, Zimonjic and Qureshi 6-4 6-1 in just 50 minutes.  

Nestor and Bopanna are pictured here with their trophies in Sydney, where they won their first title together earlier this year.

OTA YEAR BOOK ONLINE

The OTA's year book is now available on line. You can check out this review of 2014 by going to http://digital.lmgroup.com/t/8729-ontario-tennis or you can access it from the home page at www.tennisontario.com

You will find this year book is full of photos of players and events held throughout 2014. Because this is an online only version we have had the freedom to make the issue bigger and are already planning on having more photographs of more events in next years version.  We can even consider including photos and reports of your club events included if you submit to them to us and it helps us build an archive of tennis activity in Ontario.

But want if you want to print the issue?  The software we use for the magazine gives you some options.  Now if you, like many folk of my generation, think that an icon is a symbol equally incomprehensible in all human languages, here are extended help notes so you can print this issue or bits of it (and other issues) if you want. These icons appear at the top of the page. The most useful ones are described here.

  

•  display a list and cover photos of other issues (the archives) of this publication that are available. Issues of Ontario tennis online have been stored here since 2011 so 16 issues are currently available. Click on the issue to get it loaded.
• 
  
•  email a link to the displayed page. You will need to type in the name and the email address of the person you are sending to. This email address is not stored.
• 
  
•  social share the issue open at the displayed page to your account on popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
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•  print one ore more pages in high resolution
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•  download a pdf version of the issue for offline reading or printing. It will be stored in your downloads folder.

And please let us know what you would like to see in next year's yearbook!

SERENDIPITY

Serendipity is the act of finding something valuable or delightful when you are not looking for it.

Below you will find a collection of small items that I thought you might appreciate finding!

1. In this article, written by Mark Hodgkinson on the WTA web site, Lucie Safarova and her Ontario raised coach, Rob Steckley talk about her breakthrough win in Qatar, where she beat Vistoria Azarenka in the final. Their formula “Work hard, don’t forget to smile.” A good mantra for anyone!

http://www.wtatennis.com/news/article/4531363/title/hodgkinson-safarova-keeping-it-simple

2. Did you know that the Merchant of Tennis has an "experts" blog? Check out the article below and you will be prompted to follow their blog.

"Why should your child start with a junior-sized tennis racquet? The Merchant of Tennis Experts explain: http://wp.me/p5zTJO-3M"

3. This video, produced by New Balance, entitled Milos Raonic: Childhood and Tennis Development,  includes interviews with Mia Gordon, Casey Curtis and Milos’ parents. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k34ANOQtaAY&feature=youtu.be

4. In this Toronto Sun article a Toronto city councillor proposes to make better use of the City’s 200 public courts.  Do you think he would appreciate knowing what a great job the community clubs in Toronto and groups like the Sunshine Project and Philpott Fund are already doing? 

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/17/councillor-courts-improving-tennis-services-in-toronto

5. For those ladies out there who love the fashion, fun and partying aspects of tennis, delivered with a sense of humour you may enjoy the Court Girl tennis blog.

www.courtgirl.net

6. For those of you who are wondering how Michael Downey is tackling his job at the LTA here is a recent article from The Guardian newspaper.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/17/tennis-decline-lta-wimbledon-andy-murray?CMP=share_btn_fb

7. Tennis Canada is encouraging you to participate in their Live the Moment campaign.  Check it out at 

http://www.tenniscanada.com/fan-zone/live-the-moment/

8. American tennis brand K-Swiss is partnering with renowned DJ, producer and entrepreneur Diplo to launch "The Board", a game changing campaign built to inspire, and to be led by, the next generation of young entrepreneurs. Diplo, who is also known for his music production work with Beyonce, Usher, Lorde and Madonna's new album Rebel Heart, will serve as the Director of a 100-person board comprised of creative and connected individuals who will work on real tasks to bring the K-Swiss brand back to prominence. 

The application site is open today with submissions valid through April 30, 2015 at www.kswiss.com/theboard. The campaign is open to Canadian residents.

If you like any of these things please let me know what you stumble across that has some link to tennis in Ontario and you think others may appreciate pamolley@sympatico.ca