Drover-Mattinen and Ostrzygalo win the U16 Fischer Junior Outdoor Nationals

The finals of the U16 Fischer Junior Nationals were held today in Milton, ON. The event, which has crowned a number of champions who have gone on to cultivate brilliant careers on the professional tours, including Félix Auger-Aliassime, Denis Shapovalov and Bianca Andreescu, brings together the best and brightest in Canadian tennis.

This year, the Nationals welcomed two new champions. In the boys’ singles draw, Liam Drover-Mattinen of Newfoundland pulled off an upset with his two-set win over first seed Stefan Simeunovic of Ontario (6-4, 6-4). Drover-Mattinen, who secured his first national title, became the first player from Atlantic Canada to take the top honours since Philip Anderson of Nova Scotia in 2006. Perhaps more impressive is the fact that Drover-Mattinen toppled three of the top five seeds on this way to victory: Simeunovic (1), Victor Mayer (2) of Québec and Jason Guo Huang (5) of British Columbia.

In the girls’ draw, there were no surprises: Martyna Ostrzygalo (1) of Alberta defeated Naomi Xu (2) of Québec in two sets (6-2, 6-3). Ostrzygalo also made Canadian junior tennis history as the first player from Alberta to win the U16 event since Andrea Coulter in 1996. Like Drover-Mattinen, Ostrzygalo had a fantastic run, overpowering three of the top five seeds without dropping a set. In addition to the Canadian title, she also raised the winner’s trophies in San Jose (J5 and J4) in 2020 and Cancún (J4) in 2021.

In doubles, Kuang Qing Xu and Junghee You (2) of Québec won on the boys’ side at the outcome of a heated match against Kai Baerg (AB) and Keegan Rice (SK) (6-7(3) 7-6(3), [10-5]). Josie Usereau of Québec and Ellie Daniels of Ontario (3) prevailed on the girls’ side when they outwitted Ontarians Madison Lee and Orly Ogilvy (6-2, 4-6, [10-3]).

“Well done to all of the players for their performances at the U16 Fischer Junior Outdoor Nationals in Milton, Ontario” said George Fischer, Tennis Canada donor and event funder. “Particular congratulations must go to the boys and girls singles champions Liam Drover-Mattinen and Martyna Ostrzygalo respectively, as well as the boys doubles champions Kuang Qing Xu and Junghee You and girls doubles champions Josie Usereau and Ellie Daniels. Huge thanks to Tennis Canada for putting on the event in such difficult circumstances due to the impact of COVID-19.”

Click here to see all the results.