Burlington teen taking next tennis step

With the excitement of Eugenie Bouchard’s performance at Wimbledon still buzzing around tennis courts throughout Canada — we caught-up with a young lady from Burlington who’s hoping to the next step towards representing our country.

Eugenie Bouchard’s epic appearance at Wimbledon this year has been an inspiration to many young tennis players in Canada.

Anna Philp: “I like how focussed she is on court and just mentally she’s tough.”

16-year old Anna Philp has been playing since she was five-years old, so it’s not like she just joined the Genie Army. Philp’s success at the junior national championships in April vaulted her ranking to number 35 in the country among under-18 girls.

As the top seed in this weekend’s national selection tournament, being held at the Tyandaga Tennis Club in Burlington, she not only wants to represent Canada, but also earn a full college scholarship in the U.S.

Anna: “I’ve always been really competitive, so I’ve enjoyed that and it’s individual as well, I prefer individual to team sports, but tennis just kind of worked.”

Tournament director Gabriel Radulescu has been coaching tennis players for more than 25 years, including his son Andrei, a former under-18 national champ. He says Philp is a hard worker — one of many valuable traits in a world-class tennis player: “Believe in yourself, work hard and it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. So, you have to have some long term goals. It’s not who’s getting there first, it’s getting there at all. It’s a long process, long process.”

It’s taken Eugenie Bouchard fifteen years. And in the process, she’s given the world reason to watch Canada’s up-and-coming stars.

Gabriel: “Obviously they know who we are right now, so we’re contenders, not pretenders anymore in the tennis world.”