Fernie Sports Co. hosted their annual Junior tennis tournament on Saturday September 9th, with perfect tennis weather. Over 35 entrants ages 6 to 16 did themselves proud, playing their hearts out and showing the spectators their skills, sportsmanship and athleticism on court.
The winner of the U7 title was Benson Robichaud, runner up Isla Walker.
Winner U9, Des Giffin, runner up Luca Leidums and taking home the trophy for the U16 was impressive Kimberley local Finley McRae beating local Fernie tennis star Matthew Cassidy in a 3rd set tie breaker.
“The winners of each division went home with a new tennis racket thanks to sponsors Fernie Sports Co. White Ladder Painting and Ryan Frazer Properties Ltd.,” said coach Lucy Harrup. “Thanks to sponsorship from Save on Foods and Julia Jeffrey flowers (and also kind volunteers) we were able to host a barbecue, sell flowers and raise some more money to help our junior tennis programming.”
In other exciting local tennis news, Harrup was chosen by Tennis BC as community tennis coach of the year for the entire province for her work in building the tennis community in Fernie.
Over the same weekend Fernie Sports Co. and friends hosted their annual Raimey Zyboyovsky memorial tennis tournament. Raimey was a client and friend of Fernie Sports Co. She loved tennis and having sadly lost Raimey to cancer February 2022 they decided they wanted to host some tennis in her name and try to raise some money for charity. Fast forward to 2023 and they hosted the second annual tournament in her name. There were over 55 entrants.
Adult mixed gender singles was played Friday with a number of 3 set, hard fought matches, the eventual winner, fittingly, was Raimey’s good friend Jeff Dehmke. Runner up, Dan Gordon. Sunday saw a very fun and packed doubles schedule with three divisions – recreational; Winners Dan and Milo Hayward, runners up Doug and Matthew Cassidy. Competitive; Winners Dan Gordon/Petra Eikelenboom, Runners Up Sara McFarlane/Lucy Harrup and generations; Dan Gordon/Matthew Cassidy, Runners up Lucy and Emilie Harrup.
“We managed to raise almost $2000 for three selected charities in Raimey’s name,” Harrup said
Fernie Sports Co. would like to thank all the prize donors, tournament sponsors, volunteers, players and spectators who helped make these tournaments a great success. They also hosted a free tennis coaching clinic last week for any of those helpers who could join them, as these events could not happen without the phenomenal local support and generosity.