Craig Mercer: “Fuel the Dream”
A few weeks ago Irfan Shamasdin and I were the coaches for Team Ontario at the U14 Indoor Junior Canadian Nationals in Vancouver. This winter, when I realized that the U14 Nationals would be played at the same time and in the same city as Canada’s Davis Cup tie with Italy, bells started ringing! I suggested to Kartik Vyas at the Ontario Tennis Association (OTA) that we arrange for our players to experience Davis Cup. It turned out that Tennis Canada had the same idea. They decided to host the U14 Nationals at the UBC Tennis Centre which is next door to Thunderbird Stadium where the Davis Cup matches were to be played. Originally the U14 Nationals were to be hosted at Hollyburn Country Club; this was changed so that Hollyburn would host April 1-4, and UBC April 5-7.