POSPISIL ADVANCES
Vasek Pospisil ground out a tough singles match at the Odlum Brown Vancouver Open Tuesday night and finally advanced through the opening round after three previous attempts.
The 7-6, 6-4, 7-6 victory included two tie breaks, which Pospisil split with his opponent, Michael Yani, who at 30, is nearly a decade older than the 21-year-old Vancouverite who grew up hitting balls on the public courts at Kitsilano Beach Park.
The exciting match lasted more than two hours and Pospisil, ranked No. 183 on the international tennis tour, conceded he felt the nerves that come with playing in front of hometown crowds at centre court of West Vancouver's Hollyburn Country Club.
For up-to-the-second results and live match statistics, visit vanopen.com.
MEET KIMIYA
Kimiya Shokoohi will be joining the Courier sports desk beginning Monday as a sum-mer intern. She will also write news stories. The Kwantlen journalism student grew up in Burnaby and became enamoured with the Olympic movement during the 2010 Winter Games when she volunteered with the IOC. (There's a theme in these pages. See: Jagger.) She worked the mixed zones, interviewed athletes, and reported on the scores, drama and human achievement of athletes competing at the Games.
The IOC selected her to cover the inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore last year. She benefitted from training, guidance, feedback and access. Twelve months from now, she will report from London for the 2012 Summer Games.
To mark the one-year countdown to the London Olympics, which begin next summer on July 27, we're profiling the eight sports in contention for Olympic competition in 2020. Still nearly a decade away and without a host city, the 2020 Games hold the focus of emerging sports, inspire renewed interest in overlooked sports, and flirts with the sports included one year but excluded the next. We'll introduce you to the Vancouver athletes and sports organizations hungry to see their sport brought inside the rings. First up: wakeboard.
[email protected] Twitter: @MHStewart
