Rising star Joni Colburne joins the U15 Prospect Workforce camp in hometown Halifax

Final week, Tennis Canada hosted the primary of three nationwide improvement camps for its U15 Prospect Workforce in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Current on the camp was Nova Scotia native Joni Colburne, an up-and-coming participant who was invited to affix the U15 group as a U12 athlete.

“It felt superb,” mentioned Joni when requested about her response to the invitation. “I wasn’t anticipating the invite, and I really feel like it’s a fantastic alternative for my improvement, hitting with the older ladies, and simply pushing myself even tougher.”

Born in 2012, Joni is the top-ranked U12 ladies doubles participant and No. 2 U12 ladies singles participant as of this March. She competed within the U12 and U14 Fischer Junior Nationals in April, the place she positioned first within the U12 ladies doubles division, third within the U12 ladies singles division, and fourth within the U14 ladies singles division. 

“It’s a privilege to be at these camps,” she mentioned. “You need to be disciplined on your self to point out up on time and put together properly.”

Joni credited a lot of her improvement on the camps to Tennis Canada’s high-performance coaches and employees, noting that she’s been working with “the most effective coaches in Canada; in all probability the most effective on the earth”.

Steve Mahar, Joni’s coach for a few years and Director of Tennis and Participant Growth at Tennis Nova Scotia, spoke positively concerning the camps to the Chronicle Herald final week: “It’s turning heads right here. We now have all these gamers and nationwide coaches coming right here—loads of them for the primary time, and it actually places us on the map, and it’ll preserve us within the dialog for extra camps.”

Though Joni plans to maneuver away from Nova Scotia to pursue a spot on the coveted Nationwide Tennis Centre offered by Rogers in Montreal alongside her brother Caden, Mahar is thrilled along with her improvement and optimistic about the way forward for Tennis in Nova Scotia: “Hiring the teaching employees that we’ve managed to get within the final couple of years has been enormous. After all, getting a few star gamers like Joni and Caden to interrupt via and begin creating perception in different youngsters. Now, behind them, now we have another U12 youngsters which might be climbing the nationwide ladder.”

This nationwide camp offered Tennis Canada’s U15 gamers with a chance to coach with the nationwide teaching group on the Sobeys Atlantic Tennis Centre in Halifax, which was formally opened in November 2020.

Coaching with the U15 gamers, Joni has loved studying about “self-discipline, dedication, and being respectful to everyone,” crediting the success of the off-court improvement periods on the camp. 

The nationwide camps are designed to enhance participant improvement at a tennis fundamentals degree, particular to every participant’s wants. The high-performance teaching group gives precious alternatives for participant improvement each on and off the courtroom to help them on their path to turning into well-rounded tennis professionals.

“I’ve actually been having fun with it; it’s felt like a group sport greater than a person sport to this point,” mentioned Joni, praising the camaraderie created via these camps.

The high-performance pipeline is designed to assist gamers like Joni attain their long-term tennis objectives by transitioning younger gamers into worldwide competitions and high-level matches. Whereas Joni highlights an invite to Tennis Canada’s NTC as considered one of her greatest junior objectives, in the long run, she hopes to change into a top-10 participant on the WTA Tour and win a Grand Slam title.