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Thunder Bay’s tennis community is a growing one, thanks in part to the on-court achievements of Canadian pros like Victoria Mboko, the director of the city’s tennis centre said.
The southern-Ontario based Mboko, 18, won the National Bank Open on Thursday, by defeating Japan’s Naomi Osaka in Montreal.
“The kids see it on TV, adults see it on TV, right?” said Jamie Grieve, director of tennis at the Thunder Bay Community Tennis Centre, located at Chapples Park. “That’s why our memberships on (an) all time high this year.”
Grieve said Thursday the centre has about 500 members this year.
One of them is Elizabeth Niemi, who was training at the centre on Thursday afternoon.
“I watched the match [Wednesday] night,” she said. “I was really happy that she won in that really close tiebreak.”
“It just gives more motivation that in Canada, even though we don’t have as many top … very famous coaches as there are in Europe, we can still rise to the top and perform really well.”
Niemi has been playing tennis since she was seven, and has seen the youth program continually grow.
“I think there’s more people because it’s a sport that’s really good for your health, and it’s so many different levels,” she said. “You can just play for fun and just tap the ball over the net with your friends, or you could play really competitively.”
“So there’s a lot of range of skill.”
Ethyn Earl was also training at the centre on Thursday. He’s been hitting the court for 10 or 15 years.
“The kids … love it,” he said. “I think lots of parents played and now it’s all their kids coming to play.”
“It’s just a game that you can get involved in pretty easily.”
There will soon be more opportunities to play tennis in Thunder Bay: construction is well underway on the centre’s new indoor bubble.
The bubble is being built next to the centre’s outdoor courts at Chapples Park. It’s expected to open in the fall, Grieve said.
The bubble, he said, will include six indoor courts, one of which has been made wider than normal so it can be divided into four pickleball courts.
“We’re looking to host pickleball Monday to Fridays in the daytime,” he said. “Depending on what the usage is for tennis at the other times, prime time in the evenings and stuff like that, If there’s more open times for pickleball, then we’re going to host more times for pickleball.”
“We’re not (going to) leave courts empty,” Grieve said. “We’re going to try and fill them as best as we can and we think they’re going to be pretty full.”
