Fed Cup History

What a privilege it was to be able to attend the exciting Fed Cup matches in beautiful Quebec City over Easter weekend. The purpose of attending was not only to witness history in the making, but to give the Council of Provinces (COP) a chance to meet new Tennis Canada President Kelly Murumets and spend some quality time discussing priorities and challenges.

First, the matches. Even though Slovakia's A Team failed to participate, it was far from a slam-dunk affair. First match up on the Saturday had Alex Wozniak pitted against fast-rising Jana Cepelova. Admittedly, Alex was likely not the favourite to win this match, but she somehow found a way to pull it off in three sets with some ugly turns and twists along the way. My wife and I were seated at court level at one end of the PEPS stadium on Laval University campus. I could almost reach out and touch the players we were that close. Throughout the match we were simultaneously cheering and bowing our heads in disbelief of a shot gone bad. But a win is a win, and kudos to Alex for digging deep when it mattered.



Fed Cup Team celebrate victory!

The second match with our feature player Genie Bouchard against Kristina Kucova, was an equally tough battle. Genie herself admitted her game was off and she was struggling at times. You could see it in her mannerisms, frustration in her face, tossing her towel wildly at times to the ball kids. She felt like the underdog, but that's when Genie seems to raise her game up a notch, and that she did to finish out the match and put Canada up 2 to 0 on Day 1.

Our Canadian team is now among the elite 8 world group in Fed Cup with a chance to go all the way in 2015. We had an almost sold-out stadium over the weekend (3k per day). We also had national TV coverage with SportsNet and TVA along with local and national newspaper coverage, all great at growing the game and building momentum and star power.

COP Meet Kelly



Council of Provinces meets during Fed Cup, shown here with TC President Kelly Murumets


Now it wasn't all fun and games for the COP. Friday evening and Saturday morning gave us all a chance to meet the lady behind an organization that continues to build its reputation and visibility on the world tennis stage. If you watch Kelly's latest interview with SportsNet, you will note she already has very clear ideas about where Tennis Canada needs to head going forward. In person, Kelly is very affable, warm and inviting and you can tell she is also a very astute business woman. I and the rest of the COP feel she very much embraces the partnership mentality with the provinces and will stay very engaged as we look to close gaps, promote transparency and understanding, improve the competitive structure and opportunities for young players, and build tennis participation across Canada.



Fed Cup Team Loves the OTA!