Aline Halliday’s first run in the open women’s division was a good one. She aced it.
The 17-year-old from Whitehorse won her first women’s title at the Yukon Territorial Tennis Championships at Whitehorse’s Mount McIntyre courts last week.
“This is my first time playing in the women’s category instead of the junior category, so it went pretty well, I was pretty happy with it,” said Halliday. “They were all good matches and it was really fun to play with all the girls and ladies. It was really good.”
Halliday went undefeated in four round-robin matches for the title. Her closest matches were 8-4 pro-set wins over Nancy Hughes and Maya Reindlova.
Her win over Hughes stands out as a tough one, she said.
“That was a really close match,” said Halliday. “She had me running all over the place. That was really fun - all the matches were really good to play.”
“Good job to everyone else who played,” added Halliday. “It was a really fun tournament.”
The territorial championships have gone off schedule due to bad weather and other unforeseen delays.
Besides the women’s singles, the only other division completed is the men’s doubles with Kevin Patterson and Justin Hallowaty, defeating Shahid Syed and Zain Syed 8-0 in the final.
The women’s doubles and mixed doubles, which includes Halliday with younger brother Ewan, are still ongoing.
The men’s division is scheduled to wrap up on Monday. Five-time men’s champ and Tennis Yukon head coach Jan Polivka will face Hallowaty for the title.
Halliday has twice represented Yukon at major Games in tennis. She competed at the Canada Summer Games a year ago in Quebec and the 2011 Western Canada Summer Games.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com