Birmingham Dedication

In July 2010, Betty Birmingham's husband, Bruce, lost a brave battle with liver cancer. At Wednesday's officials' morning meeting, Tennis Canada CEO Michael Downey made a special presentation to Betty in honour of her husband with a plaque to rename our lounge the "Birmingham Officials' Lounge". In addition, Betty & Bruce have donated some funds to refurbish the lounge for next year's Roger's Cup. They have also renewed their gift to Wheelchair tennis in Canada for another 5 years. Wow, two very special people indeed!

OTA Hosts Nikolay Davydenko at Fifth Annual Presidents' Day

Michel Lecavalier, President of the OTA, presided over a short Q&A session with Number 6 seed Nikolay Davydenko at this year's President's Day event at the Roger's Cup. After the session, 4 lucky tables were drawn to receive a photograph with the star player himself.

Rogers Cup Toronto - Sunday Quals

Rogers Cup 2010. Men's qualifying action on Sunday. What better place to be! As line umpires in training, we always hope for lots of court time to hone our skills, but Sunday provided more training in patience than anything else as the intermittent rain delayed the action numerous times throughout the day. There were only 7 matches scheduled for Sunday, so luckily all were completed by around 5pm, even though most matches didn't get underway until around 2:30pm. Alas, our Canadian hopeful in the qualifiers, Philip Bester of Vancouver, could not outgun Michael Russell of the U.S. However, we still have high hopes for other Canadians such as Peter Polansky, Vasek Pospisil, Milos Raonic, Frank Dancevic and of course Daniel Nester. Go Canada go!

This picture was taken Sunday evening after the last of the qualifiers were completed. Shown, left-to-right, are line umpires Wail, Murad and Scott, enjoying the Official's BBQ.