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.
