Day 17 was much anticipated with the men’s and women’s singles finals being broadcast live with Canadian Tennis and broadcasting legend Robert Bettauer on hand to call all the shots. NTRP was also wrapping up, with some hotly contested finals taking place on the upper courts. Play began at 10:00 am with the women’s final as past champion, Reece Carter (Wild Card) took on 16-year-old Havana Kadi. Carter had already played two finals, Open Mixed and Open Women’s Doubles and had been victorious in both.
Kadi looked a little tight at first, and although she did find a rhythm, she was overwhelmed by the power and match maturity of Carter. Carter won 6-2, 6-1, giving her the win in all three Open events, an astounding accomplishment and a testament to her ability to push through.
The Men’s Open final began at 1:00pm and pitted past champion Henry Ren (1) against Luka Vukovic (2). It was a battle of attrition as each player fought for every single point. Neither was willing to let anything go. The level of play was excellent as each player showed both power and finesse. In the end, Ren could not reclaim the crown losing 7-6(1), 7-6(5). It was an epic battle that could have gone either way, as the score line shows.
While the NBSPO is often thought of as one single event, it is in fact, many events! Over the course of the last 17 days, many different tournaments have been played under the NBSPO umbrella, including Red Ball, Orange Ball, Green Ball, and regular ball Rookie Tours, NJOS, NTRP from 2.5 to 4.5, Parent and Child Doubles, Girls.Set.Match, YMCA Community Day, Provincial Junior Selection Series, U9/U10 Summer Doubles, U10 tournament, and of course, the Open.
It is a monumental task to organize all of these different events, set the stage at the park, arrange the sponsors, the prizing, coordinate the volunteers, the livestreaming, the broadcast, and the many other events and pieces that go into the event that make it seamless. The team at Tennis BC has been working to get this all off the ground since the tournament ended last year, and this year, the event was bigger and better than ever. Without our many volunteers we could not do what we do! It was a team effort in every sense of the word from logistical planning to execution. Many extra hours go into making this event what it is, and this year, it was the biggest it has ever been. Of particular note, Tournament Director, Max Korkh, is unmatched in his attention to detail and his level of professionalism. Max makes this event happen and he is a team player and a leader who leads by example. Thank you for making this event what it is!
Tennis BC extends our heartfelt thanks to our many sponsors, our new title sponsor National Bank, Laver Cup (which brought an added level of buzz this year) who provided amazing prizing in Laver Cup tickets for winners of NTRP, Parent and Child, and Open events, Stanley Park Brewing, who provided prizing for NTRP, City of Vancouver, Tennis Canada, Vancouver Parks Board, viaSport, Penn, the ITF, the Province of British Columbia, Fitnastika Fitness (prizing), HEAD (prizing), Sport Hosting Vancouver, Spectraone Illuminations (trophies for the Open), and Rackets and Runners (prizing).
Reece Carter in action in the Women’s Open singles final
Havana Kadi fought hard
Luka Vukovic on the way to victory
