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Sports Oakville Beaver By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLEBEAVERSTAFF 31 · Friday, July 13, 2012 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.insideHALTON.com SPORTS EDITOR:JONKUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 432) Fax 905-337-5571 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2012 31 Lessons from a legend pay off for provincial champ Oakville's Martin Beran looking forward to nationals after claiming Ontario under-18 tennis title Six months ago, it seemed like nothing more than a close, hard-fought match against a tough opponent. Oakville's Martin Beran had match point in the third round of the Canadian Indoor Open Championship in Burlington. After dropping the opening set, Beran had battled back to win a tiebreaker and found himself in another in the third and deciding set. Needing just one more point to complete his comeback, the 16-yearold's shot landed just wide. His opponent would take full advantage, rallying for a 7-5 victory in tiebreaker to seal a 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 win. On Sunday, Beran's opponent in that pre-Christmas tournament, North Vancouver's Filip Peliwo, made headlines when he became the first-ever Canadian to win a junior grand slam when he won the junior boys' singles title at Wimbledon. While it was encouraging to know he had come within a point of knocking off the player who is now the top-ranked amateur in the world, now he wishes more than ever that he'd been able to close out that match. "It kind of bothered me that I didn't have a win over him," he said. Beran had no problems closing out matches at the Ontario Tennis Association junior provincial championships the last week of June. He won all five of his matches to claim the under-18 title, his first provincial championship. Beran had entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed and lived up to that billing, winning his first four matches in straight sets. Beran reached the finals of last year's Ontario U-18 indoor championships before falling to Zain Manji but felt much better prepared this time around. "Mentally and physically, I had improved a lot," he said. "Having that experience, I went in knowing what to do." Playing in 40C-heat, he took the opening set 7-5 and looked to be on his way to another quick victory, leading 4-2 in the second set. However, his opponent broke his serve twice in a row to even the match with a 6-4 win. That's where Beran's recent training paid off. The Grade 10 student at Abbey Park spent the last semester of school at the Ivan Lendl Tennis Academy in South Carolina. The eight-time Grand Slam singles title champion would come in for a few days each month to work with the players. "Everyone would be on their tip-toes, wanting to play their best when he was there," Beran said. One of the things the former world No. 1 talked to Beran about was his body language on the court. "He told me to be more positive," he said. "He told me to be more in control, just show them you're not afraid. You want them to be afraid of you." So having just lost his first set of the provincial tournament and given his opponent all the momentum heading into the deciding set, it was time to put the lesson into action. Beran played confidently and used his strengths -- a big serve, his ability to finish points at the net and use his forehand to open up the court -- to take the final set 6-4. Now, Beran will head to the national championships in August in Mississauga. Beran is hoping for an extended run at the Canadian championships, hoping to improve upon his career-best fifth-place finish. PHOTO COURTESY OF JAG PHOTOGRAPHY If he can reach the final, he'll play on centre court at Rexall Centre before the men's final of the Rogers NET GAINS: Oakville's Martin Beran captured the Ontario under-18 boys Cup. And like Peliwo, make some headlines of his tennis championship and will compete at next month's nationals in Mississauga. Beran benefitted from spending this spring at the Ivan Lendl Tennis Academy. own. Repic roars through field to capture Ontario girls title By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLEBEAVERSTAFF Evangeline Repic Evangline Repic won her first provincial singles tennis title when she was just 11. Next month, she will look to add the only championship remaining to be added to her list of career achievement. The 17-year-old has won both provincial singles and doubles titles as well as four national doubles titles. That leaves only a national singles title missing from her resume. "I'm going to try to go and have fun," she said, "but obviously, I'd love to win it." Repic will go in as the undisputed Ontario champion, having won both the provincial indoor and outdoor titles this year, both in very impressive fashion. At the indoor championships in March, Repic not only didn't drop a set in her five matches, she only lost a total of 13 games. Seven of those games were in a 6-2, 7-5 semifinal victory over Devyn Chypyha before she came back to win an all-Oakville final 6-1, 6-0 over third-seeded Joulia Likhanskaia. In the last week of June, Repic was equally efficient in plowing through the draw at the outdoor provincials. She didn't allow an opponent to win more than three games in a set as she took her first four matches. When Kitchener's Nicole Baloescu took the opening set of the final 6-3, it snapped a streak of 18 consecutive sets won by Repic at provincial tournaments. Repic was unfazed, though. She brought an end to Baloescu's suprising run -- she was seeded eighth -- with dominating 6-1, 6-0 victories in the final two sets. "I just tried to play my style and mix it up," Repic said. Repic, ranked seventh nationally at under-18, hopes to carry the momentum from her provincial victories into the national tournament. She won't have far to go. The Canadian championships, which begin Aug. 5, will be held at the Ontario Racquet Club in Mississauga, just a couple of kilometres from the Oakville border. Repic will go into the tournament with plenty of experience. She was a national finalist at both the under-12 and under-16 Canadian championship and was third at last year's under-18 championships. And there will be no shortage of preparation. Repic spends upwards of 25 hours a week on court training at the ACE Tennis in Burlington. During the school year she See Repic, page 35