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Juneauites maintain possession of Capital Cup

The Capital Cup trophy was in Whitehorse this past weekend. And then it left again.
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The Capital Cup trophy was in Whitehorse this past weekend. And then it left again.

Tennis players from Juneau, Alaska outperformed Whitehorse competitors and kept hold of the Cup after three days of competition at the Mount McIntyre courts.

Juneau won the biannual sister-cities competition 195-158. Yukon players last raised the Cup in July of 2012.

Ten players from Juneau faced about 20 locals in 50 pro-set - first to eight games - matches. Each game won was a point in the overall scores for the two capitals.

The Capital Cup competition usually takes place indoors in Juneau during the winter and outdoors in Whitehorse during the summer. But Whitehorse players didn’t make the trip over to Juneau this past winter.

“This year we were not there because we didn’t have any adults to travel to Juneau with us,” said Tennis Yukon president Stacy Lewis.

Tennis Yukon will soon be receiving the results of a feasibility study looking into the possible creation of an indoor facility.

Tennis Yukon received a $20,000 grant from the Yukon government’s Community Development Fund late last year to conduct the study.

“We had over 150 responses on the survey - that was really great,” said Lewis. “The consultant is getting us the report by the end of July and that’s exciting. It’ll give us some hard numbers to move forward ... how many members that we need and what size would be possible, what’s realistic.

“The board is very cautious and very conservative and rightly so. We only want to go forward making decisions on real numbers.”

Tennis Yukon has sold about 160 shoetags for court access so far this summer, up from 130 last summer.

Last week Tennis Yukon hosted the first Advantage North High Performance Camp with Whitehorse instructor Jan Polivka. The camp included players from Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Juneau. Polivka recently received his Level 2 coaching certification through Tennis Canada and is currently the only instructor to possess a certificate that high in northern Canada.

The Yukon Tennis Championships will be held August 19-24.

Contact Tom Patrick at

tomp@yukon-news.com