Dear SITA Members,
Summer has ended and fall has arrived! Unfortunately, that also means the ends of vacations and summer break. Fortunately, it does not mean the end of tennis! With any luck, we will be given a sunny October to make up for July's poor weather. We have more exciting events coming up soon, so please read closely to see what interests you!
Riley Trottier
South Island Tennis Association
During the summer there were numerous tennis tournaments all over the south Island. One such tournament was the Royal Westshore Junior Tournament at Langford. SITA is proud to announce that at this tournament a Junior Player Award was given to Lucy Ewart to commend her fantastic play, good sportsmanship and sense of fun. Congratulations Lucy!
Recently a team of Victoria tennis players went over to play at a team clay court tournament at the Vancouver Lawn Tennis and Badminton Club. The team was very successful and won the tournament! They were awarded a $500 prize and have asked that the money be donated to the SITA Junior Development fund. SITA would like to send its heartfelt thanks to the members of the team: Randy Jones (Captain), Geoff Bourne, Art Hobbs, Ed Baker, Tim Hopper, David Fairbotham, Lyall Zucho, Robert Bettauer, Sherman Kwok, and Mike Koren.
Those of you with young children may already have seen Progressive Tennis and understand what it's all about. For those of you who don't Progressive Tennis is a scaled town version of regular tennis for young children under the age of 10. It has smaller racquets, nets and softer balls to allow young children to develop technical abilities on a level that is practical for them. It is a worldwide system that is very popular and is widely considered the best way to teach children the sport.
SITA is proud to say that through a partnership with Tennis Canada we managed to secure several progressive tennis sets that were used at Panorama and Oak Bay this summer. Over 80 juniors and 25 senior volunteers went through the program and had a blast.
If you are interested in teaching your child how to play tennis, you should look up one of your local rec centres and sign your child up for a progressive tennis program! Cedar Hill, Oak Bay and Panorama all offer progressive classes, and the Langford Tennis Club will also soon be offering their own program.
Tennis BC has recently announced that Tennis Canada will be sending a new national coach to the West Coast. Oded Jakob will be operating out of the Northshore Winter Club and visiting many clubs in British Columbia to help with the training and development of coaches and U14 athletes. He will be visiting Victoria at some point this winter to observe our junior players and programs.
Tennis has been in the local news several times in the past few weeks, here is a quick recap of a few of the articles that have been featured.
Victoria tennis juniors starting to make racket south of the border.
On August 25th there was an article in the Times Colonist talking about the recent results of Victoria juniors Tory Tonrud and Andjela Stojkovic in several tournaments in the States. Tory had an impressive summer record of 16-3, including an invitation to the USTA Junior Nationals in Michigan. Andjela had an impressive run in the Northwest Junior Sectional Tournament, making the semi-finals in the doubles and losing a tough three set battle with Stephanie Buckingham of Richland, Washington in the singles.
Team tennis adds spice to summer sked.
On September 6th there was an article in the Saanich News about the frist annual team tennis tournament that took place on Sept. 8-11. The format of the tournament made it a lot of fun, and team took pride in trying to find the most obscure country to represent. Results can be found on islandtennis.net under Team Tennis Tournament on the left hand side of the home page.
Vancouver preparing bid to host Davis Cup.
On September 23rd there was an article in the Times Colonist about Vancouvers bid to host the Davis Cup. Canada will play against France in February and Vancouver will be making a strong bid against Calgary and Montreal to host the event. Montreal would be the obvious choice against any other country, but against France it would almost be a neutral site. According the Tennis BC CEO Ryan Clark, Calgary is the biggest rival to Vancouver thanks to what is apparently a significant financial advantage.
October 14 - 16
Panorama Women's Doubles
Evetns: Wd 3KO
Panorama Recreation Centre, North Saanich
Entry deadline October 11, 2011
Contact: Eric Knoester 250-655-2177
October 28 - 30
Panorama Ghosts & Goblins Mixed Doubles
Events: Mxd 3KO
Panorama Recreation Centre, North Saanich
Entry deadline October 25, 2011
Contact: Eric Knoester 250-655-2177
November 9 - 13
Cedar Hill 3KO Singles
Events: MWs 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0+
Cedar Hill Recreation Centre, Victoria
Contact: Dean Gillis 250-475-7126
December 9 - 11
Panorama Christmas Mixed Doubles
Mxd 3KO
Panorama Recreation Centre, North Saanich
Entry deadline December 6, 2011
Contact: Eric Knoester 250-655-2177
SITA would love to hear from you, dear readers. We would like to know about your tennis experiences in Victoria, and from around the world. Have you found any problems on courts in Victoria recently? Tell us about it. What about playing on a new or unique surface somewhere else in the world? What country were you in, and what was the tennis facility called? Where would you recommend people go to play if they happened to be in another country you just visited? Please tell us al about your experiences, and we'll publish some in every newsletter starting in the fall.
For those of you who missed it, this years US Open Final featured a grinding style of tennis that had over 20 rallies of at least 15 shots! To give that some comparison, the average rally length on the pro tour is about 5 shots per rally. Here is a highlights reel:
Check out the video on YouTube!
Know any other awesome videos you think tennis fans would appreciate? Email them in to sitatennis@gmail.com and we'll put some more in the next newsletter!
