Winnipeg, MB (TM) – Tennis Manitoba is pleased to announce that the Carman Tennis Association is the newest member of the association. We look forward to working with the volunteers in Carman to grow the sport of tennis in the community.

About Carman
Carman, Manitoba is located at the junction of Highways 3 and 13, just 40 minutes southwest of Winnipeg. Carman is situated in the heart of a rich prairie agricultural belt, and just 60 kilometres north of the United States border.

The tennis courts are located in Kings Park which also contains an outdoor swimming pool with waterslides, playground and campground. A community foot/bike path, which goes through the park and links up other key areas in town, provides ample opportunity for walking, jogging, biking, cross-country skiing - and just plain enjoying nature.

Carman Tennis Association contact info

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Winnipeg, MB (TM) – New to the tournament schedule in 2007 is the Winnipeg Winter Club Senior Open, slated for March 25 – April 1. This tournament will be the first stop on the Tennis Manitoba Senior Tour, which will include a total of five events.

Players 35 years and older are encouraged to come out and enjoy some competitive tennis with their peers at the following tournaments:

• Winnipeg Winter Club Senior Open
  March 25 - April 1 at Winnipeg Winter Club

• Manitoba Senior Open
  May 22-27 at Winnipeg Lawn Tennis Club

• Manitoba Senior Clay Court Championships
  June 4-10 at Taylor Tennis

• Kildonan Senior Open
  August 22-26 at Kildonan Tennis Club

• Nygard Senior Tournament
  September 4-9 at Taylor Tennis.

The top point earners in each age category, based on results from all of the Senior Tour events, will be recognized at the Tennis Manitoba Awards Banquet in October.

Tennis Manitoba Senior Tour tournament schedule

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Winnipeg, MB (TM) – Based on results from the last four qualifying tournaments, the following juniors have earned enough points to finish in the top 4 in their age group and qualify to represent Manitoba at the Prairie Regionals:

Tennis Manitoba will offer a spot to the 5th player in the point standings if one of the top 4 players is unable to attend the Prairie Regionals. If further spots become available, players may request a wildcard, which will be evaluated based on the merits of the player’s past performance.

The Prairie Regionals will be held March 9-11 in Saskatoon. The top 4 boys and top 4 girls will then qualify to represent the Prairie Region at the Indoor Junior Nationals as follows:

• U12 Indoor Junior Nationals
  March 31 – April 6 in Calgary, AB

• U16 Indoor Junior Nationals
  March 31 – April 7 in Montreal, QC

• U14 Indoor Junior Nationals
  April 8-14 in Edmonton, AB

• U18 Indoor Junior Nationals
  April 9-14 in Markham, ON.

Junior Prairie Regionals Points Standings

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Winnipeg, MB (TM) – Tennis Manitoba is pleased to announce a new member club fundraising program that will allow participating clubs the opportunity to host bingos with Manitoba Lotteries in order to raise funds to go towards the cost of club programs, operations or improvements. Working in cooperation with Sport Manitoba, Tennis Manitoba will be identifying club member contributions that stimulate development and growth of the sport of tennis in the province.

The new fundraising program supports Tennis Manitoba’s vision, which is to establish a highly supportive environment that will increase awareness and participation at all levels of tennis in Manitoba.

Member clubs are encouraged to host activities and events that include participation from the general tennis community, such as:

• Tennis Manitoba sanctioned tournaments that are part of the Open, Senior, Junior or Rookie Tours

• Tennis Manitoba sponsored school programs

• Officiating clinics

• Tennis Canada sponsored clinics

• Tennis Manitoba sponsored high school clinics.

Tennis Manitoba encourages clubs and their members to participate in these activities that will help grow the ‘sport for a lifetime’. Please contact Tennis Manitoba should you wish to consider adding more community friendly events to your club’s calendar for 2007. Tennis Manitoba will assist in the development or organization of these events so that together we can build a vibrant tennis community in Manitoba.

Tennis Manitoba contact information

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Winnipeg, MB (TM) – The final qualifying tournament for the 2007 Indoor Prairie Regionals, the Winnipeg Winter Club Junior Open, was held on the weekend. Manitoba’s top junior players were competing for valuable points in the race for spots in the Prairie Regionals, which will take place March 9-11 in Saskatoon.

Each of the singles champions solidified their hold on one of the 4 spots that will be given out in each age group. The final singles results were as follows:

U12 Girls: Kylie Waschuk def. Emily Fridrik 6-4, 6-4
U14 Girls: Evann Waschuk def. Daniella Silva 6-3, 6-2
U16 Girls: Clarissa Chen def. Erika Fridrik 6-3, 6-1

U14 Boys: Will McPherson def. Lucas Nguyen 6-3, 7-5
U16 Boys: Sean Bailey def. Chad LaCap 6-1, 6-2

The doubles events will be finished later this week and an announcement of the winners of all doubles events will follow.

In addition, stay tuned later this week for the complete list of the players that have qualified for the Prairie Regionals.

More on the Winnipeg Winter Club Junior Open

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Winnipeg, MB (TM) – Beginning with the Winnipeg Winter Club Junior Open, which runs this weekend, every tournament on the Junior Tour in 2007 will be using the ‘to follow’ system. Tennis Manitoba is taking a page from the Canadian Junior Nationals, which are run very smoothly and successfully using this format.

The main difference with this new format is that players will be given a match number rather a match time. Match numbers will be posted on the website each day as part of the Tennis Manitoba Baseline System. If the club has three courts, as is the case with the Winter Club, then match #1, match #2 and match #3 will go on court at the scheduled start time for that particular day. Match #4 is the next match to go on, as soon as there is an available court. The matches then continue to be called in the order of the match numbers.

A key benefit of this system is that courts will not sit empty. When matches are completed earlier than expected, the next match numbers are called and the courts remain full.

For further clarification on the ‘to follow’ system or any other aspect of the Junior Tour, please contact the Tennis Manitoba office.

Tennis Manitoba Junior Tour tournament schedule

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Winnipeg, MB (Winnipeg Free Press, Jen Skerritt) – A new study that shows most Manitoba kids don't exercise enough has fitness officials urging the sedentary generation to get off the couch and get moving.

The University of Manitoba report released Tuesday shows that fewer than 10 per cent of Manitoba children and teens get the recommended amount of daily physical activity.

Canada's Physical Activity Guidelines recommend children engage in 60 minutes of moderate activity and 30 minutes of vigorous physical activity every day. While the guidelines may seem overly stringent, moderate activity can be as simple as walking or biking, while vigorous can include anything that makes someone break a sweat -- like running or a game of soccer.

Dr. Philip Gardiner, Canada research chair in physical activity and health studies, said he expected child activity rates to be low, but is troubled by how few Manitoba children are getting enough exercise.

Gardiner said busy parents and less recreational activity in schools are both to blame, and obesity and chronic diseases among children will continue to rise unless more Manitobans start making physical activity a priority.

Despite the grim picture of child fitness in Manitoba, the study found 94 per cent of parents believe their child exercises regularly.

"Look at the children in Canada and the U.S., they're obese and it's a problem," Gardiner said. "It's scary isn't it?"

Unlike other studies that focus specifically on sports and leisure activities, U of M research also surveyed 6,500 adults and 1,600 children and teens about their day-to-day activities including household chores and walking to the bus stop, as part of their total daily physical activity.

Without these extra activities added to the study, researchers said the results would have been worse.

The survey was also conducted in May and June 2005 -- at a time when Gardiner said many Manitobans are more active. During the extreme winter cold, Gardiner said the number of children getting enough exercise is likely much lower than 10 per cent.

Previous national studies have concluded only about 23 per cent of Canadian children get enough daily physical activity.

In response, the province is investing $116,000 in 45 community physical activity projects and launching Kids in motion -- a resource guide for parents with tips on how to keep their babies and toddlers active.

Healthy Living Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross said parents need to act as role models and encourage their children to turn off the TV and get moving.

"It's important to support children being physically active," she said. On average, the study found teens outside Winnipeg have fewer than three phys-ed classes in school a week, while Winnipeg teens have 3.2.

Lisa Scharf, chair of the Physical Activity Coalition of Manitoba, said that needs to change. The coalition is pushing for mandatory daily phys-ed instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 12, in addition to incorporating things like stretch breaks in the classroom throughout the day.

Dr. Jonathan McGavock, researcher at the Manitoba Institute of Child Health, said inactive children often grow up to be inactive adults and acquire a range of weight-related diseases, from cardiovascular disease to diabetes. McGavock said these chronic health troubles will likely start showing up in people in their 30s, as an entire generation of children grows up overweight and physically unfit.

Tennis: Ranked Top Five Calorie Burning Exercises
Tennis Manitoba Schools Programs

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Winnipeg, MB (TM) – The Calgary Corral will once again play host to international tennis, as Canada looks to knock off Colombia in the Americas Zone, Group 1 opening round Davis Cup tie taking place February 9-11. There will be a Manitoba flavor to the event, as Kieron Kennedy, David Kives, Steve Peers and David Scrapneck will be heading to Alberta for the weekend to represent our province as line umpires.

This is quite an honor for these four Winnipeggers, as no more than 24 line umpires from across Canada are selected to work the lines at the Davis Cup, which is the highest level of team competition in men’s tennis.

More on Tennis Manitoba Officiating

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Guidelines to help the parents of young tennis players by the International Tennis Federation (ITFTennis.com).

Research has shown that tennis is one of the healthiest, least injurious sports youngsters can play. Tennis is a lifetime sport. It builds self-confidence and self-esteem. It teaches self-discipline, self-reliance and respect for others. But, above all, it provides a good way of performing physical exercise whilst having fun. Today, more children than ever before are taking part in tennis.

However, there’s a big difference between learning the basic strokes to play the game at recreational level, and competing successfully at a high level.

Individual competitive sports like tennis usually teach the youngsters to work hard, to learn to manage stress, to perform under pressure, and test emotional and physical balance. However, they can also impose pressures which are damaging if handled wrongly.

Sometimes competitive junior tennis can be especially difficult for both parents and children because there are many factors which affect this competitive environment which are usually new for everybody.

For parents, competitive tennis can become a complex experience, especially if they themselves have not played at a competitive level before. For youngsters, problems occur because too often, the demands that competitive tennis place on them seem to lie beyond their control and abilities.

You, as a parent, want to help your child to manage this new situation, as you do in other aspects of your child’s life: school, friends, family, etc. You want your child to be happy, to have fun and to learn to play tennis to a reasonable level. No doubt that’s why you encouraged them to be involved in the sport in the first place.

You know that it is not easy to be a good parent and, it is even harder to be a good parent of a tennis player. To know what is best to do to help your child and also when and where to do it, is not easy.

There are a lot of questions to ask but it is difficult to know who to ask and for the most part, there are no clear answers or guidelines to follow. Many problems occur because parents are unsure as to how they can best help their child and so use their natural instincts. In doing this, they go wrong far more often than they go right.

Interestingly enough, research has shown that the support and interest of the parents is crucial to the child’s continued participation in tennis. However, it has also shown that much of the physical and emotional stress affecting the games of junior tennis players is caused by their parents. The consequences of excessive stress in junior competitive tennis are uniformly negative and often lead to burnout. Moreover, if parents put unnecessary pressure on their child, this also can damage their parent/child relationship.

The reality is that parents have a very important role to play in their child’s tennis activity, whatever the level of participation. Parents need, however, to be trained and prepared for the role they have to play in this team.

The ITF Development Department has written a publication to help you, the parent, to perform better within the highly complex and sometimes, confusing world of competitive tennis. It is written to inform and to provide guidelines on how to best help your child so as to ensure that you, as well as your child, enjoy your involvement in tennis. We hope that you find the information useful in your tennis parent role wherever in the world it may be.

More on Being a Better Tennis Parent

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