High school tennis tourney on tap

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This article was published 06/06/2022 (1452 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Athletes from seven different schools are preparing to serve, slice and smash their way to victory at the Winnipeg High School Tennis Championship starting Tuesday.

The event isn’t sanctioned by the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association (MHSAA) and it’s not listed on Tennis Manitoba’s tournament calendar either. However, tournament organizer George Kylar believes it’s a project with unlimited potential.

“I think it will be a first-class event and it will hopefully grow into a much bigger thing through the schools, that’s my objective,” said Kylar.

The pilot tournament is composed of eight high school boys teams. There are two teams of players from Gray Academy while Kelvin, Dakota, Vincent Massey, Grant Park, St. Paul’s and Steinbach Regional Secondary School round out the field.

Teams are made up of a minimum of two players from each school. Singles and doubles matches will be played in an eight-game pro-set format and schools will advance to the championship or consolation side of the bracket based on their combined results in both formats of play. Kylar explained rather than having separate singles and doubles events the format is similar to American college tennis where team performance is key.

“It kind of will be unpredictable who will win. We didn’t want to load up teams and we didn’t want to isolate it,” said Kylar. “I felt it’s important that it involves mainly not the players who are playing weekly in a tournament, but it’s mainly the growth of high school tennis at the… more recreational level so they feel competitive in there.”

His focus is on growing the sport rather than exclusively inviting the province’s youth tennis stars for the sake of handing out hardware. Despite this, he didn’t rule out the idea of having a “one-day superleague,” where top players in the province could represent their high schools further down the road.

Kylar was approached by city councilor Brian Mayes about running a tournament of this nature prior to the pandemic. But the project never got off of the ground and was postponed because of the restrictions put on sport.

The two reconnected this past spring, Mayes presented a budget for the event and they were off to the races. Kylar – who is the director of the KTA Tennis Academy – approached players he’s familiar with and encouraged them to put teams together through their schools.

“I put a lot of effort into it, it’s a one-man show now for me,” said Kylar.

He also has high hopes of expanding the tournament beyond just a boys’ draw. He said there’s potential for high school tennis in Winnipeg to be treated like hockey, where schools compete in a regular season and then advance to playoffs.

But Tennis isn’t currently listed as an MHSAA-recognized sport and he wants to get them involved and hold future events under its umbrella. This is something he believes will increase promotion and participation.

“Some schools might jump on it right away and put it on their calendar,” said Kylar. “Some schools… don’t care about tennis (and by) concentrating on other sports they might ignore it, but I think it will grow into a big event.”

Kylar’s first attempt at a Winnipeg High School Tennis Championship tournament gets underway Tuesday evening at the Sargent Park Tennis Garden.

“It’s a challenge to see something brand new… in tennis, you kind of get a little stale sometimes just (doing) the same things,” said Kylar. “This is a big thing, I hope it works.”

Gavin.Axelrod@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: Gavin77axe