Tennis Professionals Association Honours Tennis Excellence

March 2, 2007

Announce second annual TPA Award Winners

Tennis Canada and the Tennis Professionals Association (TPA) announced the recipients of the 2006 TPA Excellence Awards on Friday at the TPA national coaching conference. These awards serve as an annual recognition of excellence in Canadian tennis and coaching development in several categories including: Coach of the Year, Pro of the Year, Course Facilitator of the Year and Facility of the Year.

Ben Armstrong of Toronto won top honours as Coach of the Year. This award is given to the coach who has demonstrated the highest standards in the coaching of players and/or teams, displayed not only through their accomplishments, but in their character as well. Armstrong is a coach at Mayfair West Racquet and Fitness Club, a high performance tennis development centre, with a bronze designation. He also coaches at Howard Park Tennis Club in the summers. Armstrong serves as a member of the player development board of directors for the Ontario Tennis Association and has been a provincial coach for a number of national championships for the province of Ontario. Along with coaching at the National Training Centre in Toronto for the under-12 re-groupings, Armstrong worked most recently at the under-14 national camp in Montreal for Tennis Canada. In addition, Armstrong is a hard working and dedicated coach to several up and coming athletes including Matthew Erdman and Dominique Harmath. Most notably, Armstrong coaches sixteen-year-old Sharon Fichman, who finished 2006 as the No. 5 ranked junior player by the ITF. Fichman and partner Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia claimed two Grand Slam doubles championships in 2006 at the Junior Australian and French Opens, in addition to being doubles finalists at the Junior U.S. Open. Fichman was also a quarter-finalist at the Junior Australian and U.S. Opens in the singles draws and is a member of the Canadian Fed Cup team that is currently ranked tenth in the world.  Armstrong’s dedication and commitment to excellence in coaching make him a worthy recipient of the 2006 TPA Coach of the Year Award.

In the Professional of the Year category, the TPA awarded Pierre Lavoie, the professional tennis director at Les Tennis de Rimouski in Quebec. Lavoie has been at Les Tennis de Rimouski for more than 30 years where he has contributed to growing this small, regional club into a distinguished club across Quebec and Canada. As a certified Level 3 Coach and Club Pro 2, Lavoie coordinates adult and junior programs and has organized a “Team Tennis” program with more than 30 youth participants. Lavoie also spearheaded the “Tennis 2000” program, which had little publicity but has grown to having more than 1200 people involved, and has worked diligently in helping fundraise for the club, generating approximately $3000 a year. Lavoie is a consummate professional and Tennis Canada and the TPA are pleased to recognize his contribution to the Canadian tennis community.

The TPA Course Facilitator of the Year is awarded to Conrad Pineau for his hard work and dedication in the delivery of certification courses across Quebec. Pineau is a Level 2 coach and Club Pro 2, serving as Head Pro at the Nun’s Island Tennis Club in Montreal. Pineau is also a member of the TPA Advisory Committee and the Progressive Tennis Design Committee. He acts as Head Facilitator of Quebec and has been instrumental in implementing numerous coaching courses across the province including three instructor courses, two Club Pro 1 courses and one accelerated Club Pro 2 course, training a total of 130 coaches along the way. For the past year and a half, Pineau has been involved in the training and development of five course facilitators in Quebec. In addition, he actively promotes the TPA and National Coaching Program in Montreal and helped organize the TPA Coaching Seminar during the 2006 Rogers Cup in Montreal.

The Ontario Racquet Club in Mississauga, Ontario has been awarded the distinction of Facility of the Year. The Ontario Racquet Club opened in 1975 and is a multi-sport, multi-purpose facility. It is an extensive tennis facility including 17 tennis courts, 7 indoor hard courts and 10 all-season hard courts, and is a high performance tennis development centre with a gold designation. The Ontario Racquet Club has an excellent year-round court occupancy with low member attrition and is an active community builder with schools and community programs, tournaments and activities. The club also has more than 300 juniors enrolled in programs, more than 700 juniors in summer camps, generating over $1 million in revenue from programming alone, and has run programs in 30 schools in Mississauga and Oakville. These programs are run by the 15 full-time coaches that are all TPA members and Tennis Canada certified, with the general manager and tennis director actively involved in coaching and club certification. The Ontario Racquet Club has hosted many courses including Club Pro 2 and Club Pro 3 courses, as well as parts of Coach 2 and Coach 3 courses. It will also be the host site for this year’s under-16 outdoor junior national championships in August.

The TPA also presented the inaugural Gary Caron Tennis Professionals Association Scholarship. This scholarship was created by Tennis Canada and the Granite Club of Toronto to recognize the significant contribution made by Gary Caron to the coaching profession in Canada and in honour of Gary being named the Tennis Professionals Association (TPA) Club Pro of the Year for 2006.

The Gary Caron Tennis Professionals Association Scholarship is awarded to a young tennis professional displaying potential to reach the highest levels of teaching and coaching excellence in Canada. The scholarship provides $2,000 to offset the costs for professional development courses and seminars approved by Tennis Canada, which may include international, national and provincial conferences or seminars and certification programs. The recipient must display a commitment to excellence in the teaching and coaching profession, be working towards a full time professional career in tennis and espouse the values of fair play, professionalism, honesty and integrity. 

The inaugural recipient of the Gary Caron Tennis Professionals Association Scholarship is Eddie Brisbois. Brisbois is a Level 2 Coach who works at the Badminton and Racquet Club and the Toronto Tennis Academy in their high performance and schools programs. He has taken on several coaching roles in the past year as the under-12 coach for Team Ontario, the under-12 and under-10 coach at the national training centre in Toronto. Brisbois played tennis at the University of Idaho, a NCAA Division I school, where he played as the No. 1 seed in both singles and doubles. He was also a leader in singles wins all four years, a three-time all-conference team and runner-up conference MVP his senior year. Brisbois currently works with Penfield Binet and Paul John on the under-12 national training centre team, as well as Eli Brown, Ethan Kern and Robbie McCallum in Ontario.

These awards highlight and recognize the outstanding accomplishments made by those in the Canadian tennis development and coaching community, which are a culmination of hard work, discipline and talent.