February 3, 2025

Open Court

MORE TENNIS THAN YOU'LL EVER NEED

Canadian men win bronze at the ITF World Young Seniors Championships

The men’s 45-and-over category, at the world level, is at a top-shelf level.

So the bronze medal finish by the Canadian Dubler Cup squad of Taras Beyko, Ben Woo, Julian Heine and Dave Bell at the ITF Young Seniors World championships in Cape Town, South Africa this week was an impressive effort.

The squad defeated Germany 2-0 to clinch third place; France defeated The Netherlands to win gold.

The “Young Seniors” are the first of the three veterans’ categories, for the 35-, 40- and 45-and over age groups.

The “regular” seniors are the 50-, 55- and 60-and overs while the “Super Seniors” are all categories from 65-and-over to … infinity. The vets used to be divided into just two divisions, but an increasing number of teams and participants made it next to impossible to find locations with enough tennis courts to hold the events. Even for this event, each of the six categories (three male, three female) were held at different clubs.

Women’s 35s (Christina Popescu, Leigh Bradwell, Virginia Villani and Liane Marr): finished 7th out of nine teams in the Suzanne Lenglen Cup.

Women’s 40s: No team was sent

Women’s 45s (Deliana Matei, Anne Lydon, Marijke Nel): finished 13th out of 14 teams.

Men’s 35s (Philippe Pourreaux, David Rowat, Mathieu Giguère and Simon Tremblay-Larouche): finished 10th out of 16 teams.

Men’s 40s (Olivier Borlée, Brian Ahlberg, Jason Christie and Cameron Cross): finished  10th out of 15 teams.

Here are links to the results from each category.

Suzanne Lenglen Cup (W35)

Young Cup (W40)

Margaret Court Cup (W45)

Italia Cup (M35)

Tony Trabert Cup (M40)

Dubler Cup (M45)

This was the team event; the individuals event (with a regular elimination tournament format) will be held this week.

(Photo courtesy of Carolyn Nichols)

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