Some of Canada’s best junior tennis players are competing in the ITF World Junior Team Competitions, an event involving dozens of players from five countries in North and Central America.
Boys and girls in the under-14 and under-16 categories are playing at IGA Stadium, trying to help Canada advance into the main draw.
“It’s an amazing opportunity. You don’t get to play team competitions too often,” Callum MacKinnon, a top-ranked Canadian junior player, told Global News.
Twelve players make up the Canadian roster as the boys and girls teams take on players from the United States, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.
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“I always like team events because they’re hard to come by in tennis, and especially representing Canada. It’s an honour and I’m enjoying every moment,” Amy Shen, who is fresh off a tournament win at the U16 Fischer Indoor Junior Nationals, told Global News.
More than the tournament, this event gives rising juniors more exposure at the international level to help them measure up against other world-class juniors.
Canadian tennis players have been performing relatively well on the world tour in recent years. Felix Auger-Aliassime is currently ranked number five in the world and Victoria Mboko is the National Bank Open defending champion.
“Canada has done so much in the last 10 years that it’s almost like this is what happens. You work hard and these things happen, where in my generation that was kind of unheard of,” Sharon Fichman, the Junior Billie Jean King Cup Canadian team captain, told Global News.
Tennis Canada officials say they are proud of the players the national program has been producing and they want to build on the momentum.
“We’re holding our own really well. So we’ve had really good success, women and men,” Martin Laurendeau, head of men’s tennis at Tennis Canada, told Global News.
The qualifying rounds for the ITF World Junior Team Competition end Friday. Canada needs to finish among the top two countries to advance to the main draw.
