Photo courtesy of Scott Roblin

By Scott Roblin

Tennis Dynasty

Hellers close out outdoor season with fifth straight Mixed Doubles Open title

Sep 8, 2019 | 8:46 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – In what’s served as the Medicine Hat Tennis Club’s wrap up to the outdoor season has evolved into an annual showcase of one of the city’s most well known tennis duos.

For the fifth consecutive year, the husband and wife team of Calvin and Tracy Heller ran the table over the weekend to capture the Medicine Hat Open Mixed Doubles title.

Beginning the tournament on Thursday rather than Friday due to inclement weather heading into the weekend, the Hellers went undefeated in their four games en-route to the championship.

That included a clinical 6-2, 6-0 victory over the second-seeded team of Kassie Bourassa and Cory Streifel on Saturday night to walk away as city champions.

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While reflecting on his half-decade of dominance at the September tournament, Calvin said his record pales in comparison to that of Tracy’s.

“Tracy has been in the final eight years or nine years in a row,” said Calvin. “She’s played with a couple other partners, we’ve lost a few times previous.”

He joked that’s meant he’s had to step up his game on the mixed doubles stage.

“It just tells you who’s the important part of this team, is what that tells you,” said Calvin. “She played fantastic [Saturday]. She probably wasn’t totally happy with the way she played in the semi, but [Saturday] they hit a ton of balls at her and she just answered the bell at every one of them.”

The Hellers only dropped one set the entire tournament and will likely retain their number-one seed ranking into next year’s mixed doubles events.

Tracy said they were dialed in on Saturday night and played some of their best tennis of the summer.

“The level of tennis and quality of tennis has really come up,” said Tracy. “Calvin and I, I thought, played pretty well. We were I guess grooving together, so it worked out well for us for sure.”

Saturday’s victory was Calvin’s third championship of the season after winning titles at the City Singles tournament and Summer Mixed Doubles event, which he captured with his wife.

Tracy was also a consolation champion in the women’s open division at the City Singles tournament back in May.

“They’re a remarkable team,” said Medicine Hat Tennis Club manager Ken Clement. “They work well together and I must say they are probably the team that practices the most as well.”

Reina and Jordan Schibler captured the consolation title in the open division, knocking off CoraLee Riehl and Jehan Marcos in three sets on Saturday (4-6, 6-4, 6-3).

The intermediate division crown was won by the duo of Linda Norris and Jackson Wenzel in three sets (3-6, 6-4, 6-4) over Gabi and Brock Hale, while the intermediate consolation title went to Lily and Gary Laurent with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-1 win over Rocheal and Mak Howes.

Wrapping up a season that included a number of provincial events, Clement said it’s been a summer of growth for the local club.

“This has been our biggest year in terms of provincial exposure with the [Alberta] 55+ Games and with the Alberta Provincial Outdoor [Junior] Open,” he said. “Tennis Alberta has asked us if we’d like to host an adult tournament the first weekend of October, we’re looking at that and we’re not sure what kind of entry we’ll be getting. But, we’re definitely on the radar of the rest of the province.”

Watching History

In the middle of the club’s final tournament of the year, players and spectators were huddled around a television screen inside the clubhouse on Saturday afternoon.

On that screen, they watched as 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu became the first Canadian to ever win a Grand Slam event with her straight sets victory over tennis legend Serena Williams.

“We were huddled around there as if it was a Stanley Cup game or the Raptors were playing,” said Calvin. “When she put that winning point away everybody was up in arms and high-fiving, it was fantastic to see.”

Andreescu’s victory at Flushing Meadows is already being hailed as one of the greatest moments in Canadian sports history, something that Tracy said she agrees with.

“She’s got fight that girl,” said Tracy. “Very, very proud of her as a Canadian for sure. We’re all rooting for her and hopefully there’s many, many more for her.”

Canadian tennis has taken a major step forward in recent years, with four Canucks in Andreescu (5), Felix Auger-Aliassime (19), Milos Raonic (22), and Denis Shapovalov (33) all being ranked in the top 35 on the WTA and ATP world tours.

Calvin said Andreescu’s historic win will hopefully get more people tuning in to watch the sport he loves.

“I think it’s going to inspire a ton of people,” said Calvin. “Young people, old people are getting excited about it. When you have ambassadors like her, Milos [Raonic], the whole crew of Canadians, [Denis] Shapovalov, it’s exciting. The future is bright.”

From a junior perspective, the Medicine Hat club is seeing the most talent coming out of the teen ranks in years and expect kids across Canada to start picking up racquets due to Andreescu’s victory.

“We’ve had a big push starting with Genie Bouchard a few years ago and then with the young guys coming up,” said Clement. “But, I think this is only going to continue the momentum.”

“From what I understand there are lots of kids coming through the system and of course, we have all sorts of kids here even in Medicine Hat playing that are excited about this and thinking, ‘Well, maybe I might be able to accomplish something along these lines.’”