Injured Chewy clinched first Gold in 20 years

As the forehand of McGill rookie Lily Dionne-Jermanovich sailed long, Qiuyan Tian a.k.a. “Chewy” jumped up, her feet barely left the ground as her ankle was taped up, mild cheers came from Blues players and coaches courtside. The U of T Varsity Blues had captured the Joy Taylor Memorial Trophy by winning the OUA Women’s Tennis Chmpionships.

The hard work of these players finally paid off. Tian had been bothered by a sore ankle all season. She did not even participate in the first fixture against the York Lions. But today, she won the clincher. Tian was actually down 1-3 in the first set. She then stepped it up and won three games in a row. The players traded breaks and “Chewy” was serving for the set at 5-4. She didn’t disappoint and closed out the set.

Meghan Cheung, one of the alternates for the Blues, provided some much needed support for “Chewy” throughout the match as she sat courtside. Tian got off to a much better start in the second and went up 4-1, up two service breaks. Dionne-Jermanovich showed that she wasn’t going to go back to Montréal without a fight and won the next two games. “Chewy” won her next service game to put the pressure back on the McGill player. In an effort to prolong the match, Dionne-Jermanovich got up early in the game and led 40-15. However, Tian thought to herself "I gotta come back, I need to finish the match now". She saved two game points and went on to capitalize on U of T's first championship point (the deuce point).

In earlier action, the team of Laura Ozolins and Isabel Jarosz and the team of Karina Avramenko and Tian won their doubles matches, 8-2 and 8-4 respectively. Ekaterina Alchits and Mary Martchouk deserves a lot of credit as well. They battled back from 2-5 down to go up 7-5. However, they couldn’t hold on and lost some really tough points on their way to losing the tiebreaker. Winning the doubles point proved to be very important, it took a tremendous amount of pressure off the players in singles play.

In singles action, Jarosz was the first to complete her match again. Despite a bad start, getting down 0-2, Jarosz needed little time to regroup and won the next six games to take the first set 6-2 against Ceran Baysan. Masha Sidorova, one of the alterate players for the Blues were courtside during one of Jarosz’ changeover. She provided some excellents tips: “If you’re a little confident, go for it. And if you’re really confident, GOOOO for it.” Sidorova also took her positive energy and distributed it over the different courts. The second set saw Jarosz continue her dominance. She took the set and gave U of T a 2-0 lead in the fixture.

Our number one player Ozolins is number one for a reason. Her shoulder was still sore from her three set marathon win against Alison Nash of Western. In what appeared to be a much closer match, Ozolins won most of the big points to dismiss Hannah Kirisi, 6-0, 6-1. The Blue player was her aggressive usual self, trading and winning heavy top spin groundstroke rallies against Kirisi. Ozolins finished her season undefeated in singles and doubles (partnering Jarosz). Jarosz was also undefeated in singles play.

U of T was up 3-0 in the fixture. However, the last point is always the toughest one to get. While Alchits lost a hard-fought match on court 3 to Alison Weinberg, Avramenko also dropped a tough one on court 5 to Liz Paden after losing a second set tiebreaker. McGill was back in the game.

Out on court 4, Martchouk was rather unlucky as Natalie Ko’ shot caught the net cord on set point and dropped on the “wrong” side of the court. The score was 4-6. Around the same time, Tian had just won the first set. As “Chewy” won her match and the Blues clinched the championship, Martchouk was still battling hard on her court. The second set was a seesaw battle. Martchouk was anxious to celebrate with her teammate but agreed to finish this set. She put a great fight but lost the set 5-7.

As the final match finished, the final score was 4-3 for the Varsity Blues. The championship ceremony started with silver medals being awarded to the deserving McGill Martlets. Compared to last weekend, they were much tougher this time around and gave the Blues some tough matches. Shortly after, gold medals were awarded to the lady Blues. Head coach Nabil Tadros called up players in order of seniority. You can sense how proud Tadros was of his players. Captain Avramenko was the first to receive a medal. Tian and Cheung followed. Next was the group of Ozolins, Martchouk and Alchits. Last, but certainly not least, were rookies Jarosz and Sidorova.

Avramenko was then given the priviledge to hoist the Joy Taylor Memorial trophy. Jarosz and Ozolins was called up to hold up the banner. The ladies and coached posed with all their newly acquired hardware and smiled as flashes were fired from the numerous cameras at the ceremony.

The team did not stay on the court for long as the men’s final was about to get started. The ladies took the celebration outside where each player got a picture with the trophy and the banner. The party did not end there. The ladies and coaches dined at Wendy’s on Oxford Street. Unlike other occasions, the ladies did not protest as coach Tadros suggested celebrating at Wendy’s. Afterall, the frosties and chicken strips has provided the team with some much needed fuel throughout the season.

The ladies said their goodbyes in the parking lot for now. They have developed some great friendships with each other throughout the short, yet memorable season. It wouldn’t be the last time the team see each other. Some of the ladies had plan to show off their gold medals at a party hosted by alumni Mark Renneson. Hopefully, the team will get together for some exhibition tournaments, social gatherings and of course the end-of-year Athletic Banquet. Congratulation to the Varsity Blues Women’s Tennis Team — OUA Champions 2004.

- CL | 03 Oct 2004, 23:00

< Home