Juneau, Alaska’s best tennis players were in Whitehorse over the weekend and they flew home on Sunday with an extra carry-on.
The Alaskan team took back possession of the Capital Cup trophy with a 318-229 win over Whitehorse players at the Mount McIntyre courts in Whitehorse.
Whitehorse won the biannual sister cities’ competition last July with a close score of 309-290. (The winter edition of the competition in Juneau was cancelled.)
The Alaskans won the Cup in Juneau in March of last year by the miniscule margin of 293-292.
“It went really well. It was nice to play in the sun and I was playing pretty well,” said Whitehorse’s Aline Halliday. “The best match for me was against Mona (Yarnell) from Juneau. It was the last match of the tournament for me.”
Halliday lost 8-4, “but that was better than I’ve ever done against her,” she said. “Every game went to deuce, I just didn’t win the points that mattered.”
A total of 72 pro-set (first to eight games) matches were played over the weekend.
The Capital Cup takes place indoors in Juneau in the off-season and outdoors in Whitehorse during the summer. It dates back to 1983, but was discontinued after 2000. The 2012 win for Whitehorse last year was the third since the competition was resurrected in 2008.
Halliday is one of six players getting set to compete at the Canada Summer Games next month in Sherbrooke, Que. Joining her on the team are Kieran Halliday, Khang Pham, Ewan Halliday, Alex Roberts and Gentianne Graham.
Next month will be Kieran’s second Canada Games, having played tennis at the 2009 Games in P.E.I. where he produced Yukon’s very first victory of the Games in any sport.
Kieran, Aline, Roberts and Pham also competed at the 2011 Western Canada Summer Games in Kamloops, B.C.
“I’m feeling a bit nervous,” said Aline. “We had some really tough competition at westerns and we know there are some big teams coming from Ontario and Quebec and I haven’t played anybody from there ever. I’ve played a lot of the kids from Alberta and British Columbia in other tournaments, but I don’t know what to expect from Ontario and Quebec and the East Coast.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com