It’s long been known that when it comes to youth sports up this way, Sudburians are more than willing to travel south with their youngsters in search of competition.
When it comes to youth tennis in Ontario, however, the opposite is also apparently true.
This past weekend, the Sudbury Indoor Tennis Centre hosted their second OTA (Ontario Tennis Association) sanctioned early spring tournament, with the event taking another step forward from its humble beginnings one year ago.
This time around, SITC head coach/head pro Richard Bulbring and company were able to offer a field eight deep in all three age brackets (U18/U16/U14) on both the boys and girls side of the draw, thanks in large part to a healthy influx of the “south of Barrie” crowd.
“I kind of wanted to play tennis here while visiting some family – kill two birds with one stone,” suggested 15 year-old boys U18 champion Jacob Liao, making the trek north from Oakville. “I had never seen these players before so I will check my opponent’s history – and I noticed that two of the three people I played were not from Sudbury either.”
In beating Artem Slinchenko 6-2, 6-3 in the final, the young man who plays out of the Royal City Tennis Club in Guelph would take down a fellow southern Ontario foe, albeit one that he has not faced before in tournament play.
“When I play someone that I don’t know, we get like five minutes to warm up so I try and look for what is weaker or stronger: their forehand, backhand, volley.”
Still, that is but one purpose of the warm up in the mind of the grade 10 student at Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School in Oakville. “When I am practicing (before the match), my racquet speed is only 20%, 30% - just enough to get a feel for the ball,” said Liao. “When I get into the game, I want to be able to feel the right contact.”
“I don’t want to be framing it or hitting it everywhere.”
As for his weekend in the nickel city, it was the consistency in his game for which Liao was most appreciative. “Just being able to rally, hit it in a lot and wait for an opportunity to move up,” he said. “I’ve always been a more aggressive player but I feel that in the past couple of years, I haven’t been doing as well playing aggressively.”
“I’ve improved the most defensively and rallying,” Liao added. “Out of all of my tournaments, this is one where I have hit a lot of volleys – and it’s the one that turned out the best.”
Still, it’s not only those visiting the region who enjoy the chance to mix it up a bit in terms of facing the same faces on the opposite side of the net.
Born in South Africa but moving to Sudbury when her father accepted the job at the facility adjacent to Queen’s Athletic Field, Annabelle Bulbring would fall in the semi-finals of the U16 division to an adversary that she faced at the same event last year at this time.
“I played a girl that I lost to in the consolation final,” noted the grade 9 student at Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School. “I lost again today but the skill level was really different – almost every game was to deuce. I just couldn’t get a break point.”
That said, the well-spoken teen who returned to tennis after spending a handful of years in her youth out on the horse riding circuit once the family moved to Canada was happy to welcome those who are not SITC clubmates to the competition – even as she searches constantly for some variety in terms of opponents.
“I’m playing a lot of different people at the club,” she said. “There are not a lot of junior girls so usually I play the guys that are juniors, sometimes some adults.”
And then there is, of course, that one truly special rival who offers a challenge unlike all others – both good and bad. “I do play my brother (Noah – age 17), not usually a full match but we do play points and tiebreakers and stuff. Obviously, he usually wins – but the rallies are usually pretty good.”
Except when they're not.
“It depends how he plays against me,” Bulbring said with a smile. “He plays differently with me than other people. When he plays the style that I usually see in his OTA tournaments, then we have nice rallies. Sometimes, he’s a little mean, but it’s fine. It’s always adorable.”
Also a grade 9 student at Lo-Ellen and also eliminated in semi-final action, Vishnu Nair shares one other commonality with Annabelle Bulbring: that of having been introduced to tennis in his native homeland prior to the family moving to Canada.
Born and raised in Singapore, Nair transplanted to Sudbury in 2017 but took a short period of acclimatization before returning to a game that he very much enjoys. “When we moved to Canada, I took a break from tennis for a while,” said Nair. “I started to pick it back up right before Covid started.”
“But we couldn’t play until the protocols loosened up and stuff.”
By that time, the tennis skills he had developed in his earlier youth were somewhat hit and miss.
“I had forgotten quite a bit of it but there were a few parts where I could remember my coach talking to me about a long time ago – and there was some muscle memory.”
It’s really in the past two years with the advent of his teenager status where Nair has seen another large step forward. “My first serve; I can feel a lot more power in my serve just coming naturally, which feels very nice,” he stated. “Now I can actually get an advantage on my opponent on my serve.”
With that going well, Nair was able to focus on another area that he feels is critical in terms of allowing him to compete with counterparts from across the province. “My shots were consistent,” he stressed. “I did miss a few but it was really nice to see that I didn’t miss too many shots.”
“Hitting a winner is one thing but getting the shot in and not missing is the most important thing. It was good to see that I was able to land forehand and backhand shots consistently in the court.”
And the fact that he was able to do so against opponents that he had never faced before, well that’s just icing on the cake.
Following are the results from the finals that were contested at the Sudbury Indoor Tennis Centre on Sunday:
Girls – U18Veronica Rabinovich beat Aleksandra Sopovski – 6-1, 6-2
Boys – U18
Jacob Liao beat Artem Slinchenko – 6-2, 6-3
Girls – U16
Evelina Nicolaleava beat Juliana Calderon – 6-3, 6-7, 10-8
Boys – U16
Anderson Clark beat Tarun Lakshminarayan – 6-1, 6-3
Girls – U14
Lilian Gadjanov beat Emilie Chen – 6-3, 6-2
Boys – U14
Nikita Cresiun beat Rudra Singh Toor – 6-0, 6-0
