Tag: Tennis

The newly-formed Concordia University Tennis Team (CUTT) has come a long way since it’s first official tryouts in March 2013.

Some of the players recruited last March are still on the team, others are not. The team held a few practices over the summer but they were not mandatory. Official training began in early September. Since then the team has been training once per week. Some players have chosen to play outside of team practice sessions, whether to work on technique or play some games, as well as do workouts on their own.

Last weekend, CUTT sent four players to represent Concordia in the Halifax Campus Challenge, a competition featuring participants from universities across Canada. They played in both singles, doubles, and mixed teams, and came back with a gold medal.

“It was amazing,” Concordia men’s tennis player,Jason Savage, said. “It was pretty competitive too so that was great.”

Concordia women’s player, Emilie Cyrenne, was also quick to talk about the positive experience, “It was so much fun. It was just perfect.”

“It was unique because we had one singles team, one doubles team and a mixed team,” said Dominic Labelle, the men’s team’s second ranked player.

On Nov.30, CUTT will meet the McGill team for the first time in an exhibition duel. The format of the encounter will be the same as the one in the official league which will take place in early 2014: six singles  and three doubles for both the women and the men.

“It’s going to be a really good benchmark [for us] because they won the Nationals last year,” said men’s coach Fabien Zermatte. “We’ll be able to judge what level we are and what to improve on.”

The team strongly encourages fellow Concordia students to come and cheer them on. The matches will take place from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Uniprix Stadium. More info will be provided on their Facebook page, facebook.com/ConcordiaTennisTeam.

From January to March 2014, CUTT will compete in the second edition of the Quebec University Tennis League, in which five Quebec university tennis teams will participate: Concordia, McGill, Université de Montréal, Sherbrooke and Laval. Over the course of eleven weeks, every team will face each other twice. The results will be used to establish the seeding for the provincial championship called the Championat Québécois Universitaire, which takes place at the beginning of next April. The Championat Québécois Universitaire is a new tournament that is in the midst of being designed by the managers of the teams that will participate in the Quebec University Tennis League. The winning team of the provincial championship will represent the province in the national university championship in August, called the Championnats tennis canadiens collégiaux et universitaires.

The team is composed of two coaches, Andreea Constantinescu for the women’s team and Zermatten for the men’s team, and team manager for the men and women’s team, Ginta Cojocaru.

“This is only our first year in the league, so going forward I don’t know what to expect but certainly discovering other teams and entering the pace of the league and playing every weekend is going to be a challenge but I think we can do it,” Cojocaru said.

At this point, the roster consists of 10 men and seven women. While they will not be holding official tryouts until next fall, they are constantly looking for additional players, particularly women.

“That being said, guys are also welcome to try out, as there is room for more!” Cojocaru said.

They encourage Concordia students to spread the word, visit their Facebook page, and check out their website at concordiatennisteam.com.

With hockey being the most dominant sport in Montreal, tennis seems to be ranked much lower in the minds of sports fans in Montreal and at Concordia. Not for Ginta Cojocaru, however.

The 21-year-old Brasov, Romania native and political science student at Concordia came to Canada with her family when she was three. She began playing tennis at the age of seven, when her parents signed her up for lessons at Carrefour Multisports.

“Over time, I enjoyed it so much that I was no longer playing because my parents wanted me to, but because I wanted to,” she said.

These early learning step proved to be rewarding; Cojocaru later went on to win many notable tournaments in Canada and in Europe. She won the Quebec Championship in singles and in doubles five times between the ages of 10 and 14, where she ranked number one on the Quebec tennis team. Cojocaru also reached ninth place in a tournament in France, which included players from 50 countries.

Cojocaru’s proudest moment of her tennis career came when she won the under-12 Quebec Championship.

“A Nike watch was one of the prizes for the winner,” she said. “I wanted one just like it. During the final, my all-time rival had won the first set and was leading 5-2 in the second. All I could think about [then] was that watch and how it was slipping away. I took a moment to gather all the strength I had in me and turned the match around. I ended up winning the match in three sets. I didn’t lose hope.”

Cojocaru’s life and tennis career has not always been fun. When she was 12, she went for to see the doctor for an arm injury. When she told him she was also suffering from occasional back pain, he took X-rays. That’s when the doctor told Cojocaru her tennis career was over.

“[The doctor] explained to me that I had a spondylolisthesis, a forward dislocation of one vertebra over the one beneath it, producing pressure on spinal nerves,” she said. “[The] condition is relatively serious insofar as the dislocation can worsen over time and can ultimately lead to paralysis.”

However, she decided to continue playing and admits she didn’t take the doctor’s orders, or any other specialist she saw, to stop playing seriously.

“My life was revolving around tennis and I didn’t think anything could stop it,” she said. “I felt a very strong and steady back pain [during a tournament in France]. Despite knowing that I had to take a break, I decided to compete in the [under-14] Quebec Championship, which I was supposed to win, as I was the number one seed. When I lost the championship, I decided [I had to stop].”
Cojocaru spent a year and a half rehabilitating her back. She said losing the under-14 championships was the hardest moment of her career.

“That was the moment when I reached the conclusion that my back no longer allowed me to play,” she said. “I remember crying in the locker room forever.”

She made a comeback at 15-years-old to try to regain her number one ranking in Quebec. She finished third in Quebec before quitting tennis for good at 17.

If there is one thing Cojocaru would have changed during her career, she says it would have been to be less hard on herself.

“I didn’t want to acknowledge that my condition was something that was slowing me down,” she said. “Because of the pressure that I put on myself, I was never satisfied when I played. If I could go back, I’d tell myself to take it easy, and enjoy the opportunity that I had to just play the sport that I love.”