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Juneau takes back Capital Cup

Tennis Yukon's possession of the Capital Cup was once again short lived, having lost it to Juneau on Sunday at the Mt. McIntyre courts.
tennis

Tennis Yukon’s possession of the Capital Cup was once again short lived, having lost it to Juneau on Sunday at the Mt. McIntyre courts.

After Whitehorse won the Cup in Juneau earlier this year, players from the Alaska capital took it back winning 182 games to Whitehorse’s 150, coming from 33 pro-set matches over the weekend.

“It was more in our second tier of players, Juneau got wins and the spread,” said Tennis Yukon president Stacy Lewis. “Our top players were winning their matches.”

Yukon’s top players did, indeed, prevail more often. Tennis Yukon head coach Jan Polivka and visiting coach Gerry Macken, who was Team Yukon’s coach at the Canada Summer Games in 2009, defeated top Juneau player Vini Lada and partner Steve Hamilton 8-1 to start the competition.

Polivka and former Yukon champ Kyle Marchuk, who lost to Polivka in the Yukon Championship finals last year, defeated Lada and Hamilton 8-2 in a following doubles match.

Polivka and Marchuk also took wins over Lada in single matches.

In another match with top players locking horns, former Team Yukon player Ryan Lane and new Yukon coach Mike Russo, took on Lada and Juneau’s Colin O’Brian. Lane and Russo took the match 8-7 (7-4) for the closest contest over the weekend.

The biannual Capital Cup, which takes place indoors in Juneau in the spring and outdoors in Whitehorse in the summer, pits the two capitals against each other. It dates back to 1983, but stopped after 2000. Since resurrected in 2008, Whitehorse has only won it twice in seven attempts, neither time at home in the Yukon capital.

“The exciting part for us is we had players playing for the Capital Cup for our end, who had never played in it before,” said Stacy. “So each time we play it, we get more people, and they realize how fun it is.”

Tennis Yukon announced this week that, with a grant from Whitehorse, the Mt. McIntyre court will be resurfaced in July. Taking on a more modern appearance, the hard courts will no longer have the traditional green and red surface. They will be switched to purplish-blue surrounded by green.

“They call it pro-purple, because it’s the purple they use at the Rogers Cup (formally the Canadian Open),” said Lewis. “It’s just a real deep purplish-blue colour and is quite pretty. It’ll look sharp.”

The resurfacing is scheduled for the week of July 11, weather permitting.

Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com