The “Challengers” Tennis Academies of Canada

The 5th edition of the ITF J30 Manotick event is behind us. We had a great turnout and a solid level of tennis, likely the highest we have seen to date.

Alexander Totoian from the US took the title defeating MathiasHamel-Van Dun of Canada 6-1, 6-3 in a hot and windy final. The American Samantha Govila won in three sets aganist a Canadian Mariya Marinova, who was a top seed at the event, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2.

The very high level and exciting doubles ended prematurely due to medical reasons with American players Nirbhay Agarwal and Alexander Totoian defeating Canadians Tomas Giachero and Benjamin Perreault 4-1.

In girls doubles, the win went to a team of Ukrainian girls Amaliya Bakumenko and Mariia Shybanova, who defeated Canadian girls Emma Escobar and Laure Fortier-Gariepy 6-1, 6-1.

This year the event brought the highest number in history of Ottawa - developed players becoming, as originally intended, a platform and launching pad for highest level junior tennis for Ottawa - developed competitors.

Matheo, Arjun, Eli, Patrick, Anis and Nikola were joined by Bianca, Bronwyn, Zahava and Sienna as a combined, large contingent of players who come from our local system.

Nikola earned hefty ITF points by reaching the singles semi-final losing that match in difficult weather conditions in a tough three setter; some of that match is shown in the video I posted below.

Sienna reached the quarter finals in the girls singles draw while Bianca Bordogna, a debutant on the ITF cicuir, just 13 years old, earned points by playing girls quarterfinals doubles with a respectable loss 3-6, 4-6 to a number 3 seeded team.

Congratulations to the tournament winners, and to all the players who took part at the event. Big thank you to the sponsors, the volunteers, to our tennis federation and to the amazing ITF ref team.

You all kept it together despite difficult and fast changing weather conditions that required us to make difficult decisions that could never make everyone happy but we did it: all events finished on time and players got what they came for: played great tennis and the best ones earned the coveted ITF points.

Cheers,
Coach Michael

Just a few snapshots from today's opening day of our Manotick J30 ITF tournament. Great junior tennis, fantastic family time, and new friendships forming. The way it should be. Let's only hope that the weather cooperates.

Sharing just a snapshot of the great event for the girls we ran the last weekend of May jointly with the Canada Hall of Fame tennis player Aleksandra Woźniak at her tennis academy in the Eastern Townships.

This was our 6th regrouping co-organized with Aleksandra. There were a lot of smiles, great friendships forming and a lot of hard work on a tennis court with sun and wind being important factors to account for.

As always we are grateful to Aleksandra for everything and especially for sharing her wisdom and tour experiences with the young aspiring athletes. These messages, like water drops falling on a rock, are slowly but surely making a difference in their lives.

Coach Michael

And this is what our weekend looked liked.

Another very successful competitive regrouping on clay in Mont Tremblant is behind us. It is I believe the 6th time I took the players there to learn how to play on this surface. It was worthy of every minute.

I wanted to thank the plaeyrs and their families for contributing to an excellent atmosphere and for putting the great effort in every activity we did. I am very proud of every single one of you.

Coach Michael

Congratulations to our young player Ananya for winning a tournament in Kinston, Ontario this weekend.

Ananya had a really good week overall as she also participated in school sporting activities making a team there and scoring high among all grade 6 girls.

Ananya landed 1st place in throwing competition, was 3rd overall in long jump, and ended up taking two 4th places in 100m and 200m races - all in one day!

We highly value the demonstrate Ggreat commitment to sports and physical activity demonstrated by this young athlete. Keep it up, Ananya.

Coach Michael

Building a player from the ground up is a major adventure and undertaking. As we enter the outdoor season, it is a good time to reflect on some of our accomplishments.

I am very please to see that both players that started with us at age 6 are doing well in their acquisition of strong fundamentals. They are developing well into committed, disciplined, happy and well-performing young competitors.

While there are many ways to assess players and their progress, one of the measures we use is the Universal Tennis Rating.

Within that system of measurements, for the boys born in 2016 in the National Capital Region I am pleased to report that Max Chow is the highest ranked U10 player by UTR as of today. Similarly, for the boys born in 2017 in our region, Luka Qi is the highest ranked U9 player by UTR to date.

We are wishing Luka a good time training in China for the next two months while Max prepares to visit and train in Europe with his two older teammates in June under our supervision.

Congratulations, boys. Your hard work, dedication and love of our sport are clearly noted and appreciated. Keep it up and you will do well.

Coach Michael

Please join me and congratulate our high performance team member Coralie D'Amours for reaching the final of the Rideau Sports Centre U12 U14 Provincial Circuit Mar 7th-8th OTA 3-star event. Reaching this final is Coralie's maiden OTA achievement and I am sure it is not going to be her last.

Raising a trophy at 3-star events usually requires winning against three different opponents over a two day period, and then there is the 4th match - the final - which is often the hardest one to play. This is not a trivial achievement for young players.

Physically, it means playing on average 6 hours of high intensity singles tennis over a combined 24 hours. We never train indoors in a capacity to match this level of effort simply because we do not have enough court time and space.

Coralie is one of the hardest working players among all of our students, who also possesses a very strong mind during competition. Results this weekend demonstrate this. I knew it would eventually happen, it was just a matter of when.

At this time I wanted to also congratulate all of our players who went out there and competed well this weekend. We had a very high number of players who sailed through their first rounds nicely, and several who got to the quarter finals demonstrating good work ethics and improvements in their game.

I considered this tournament a tune up before the springtime outdoor season. I generally liked what I saw our players bring on a tennis court in their matches. The growth is occurring. There is a clearly visible hunger to play well, to fight, to get better with each match. This was particularly present in the matches played by Adrianna, Armin, Ananya, Luka and others.

Keep it up, guys. It is clear you are on the right path.

Coach Michael