Laval & Alberta advance to women’s tennis final

Laval, Que. - For the second consecutive year, the Laval Rouge et Or and Alberta Pandas will meet for women’s gold at the Canadian University Tennis Championships, after recording a pair of semifinal wins over the Dalhousie Tigers and Toronto Varsity Blue Thursday at Parc Saint-Victor in Laval, Que. The invitational event run by Tennis Canada in association with U SPORTS brings four regional representatives together to compete annually for bragging rights in Canadian university tennis.  

 

Laval sweeps Dalhousie, advances to final

The Université Laval Rouge et Or booked their place in the women’s final at the 2025 Canadian University Tennis Championships with a dominant 7-0 win over the Dalhousie Tigers on Thursday.

Competing at Parc Saint-Victor in Laval, Que., the Rouge et Or swept all three doubles matches before rolling through singles play without dropping a set.

Érica Di Battista and Alexandra Quinn opened the day with an 8-0 win in doubles over Anna Nicolela and Nitha Raghu, while Janic Durocher and Maya Thabet downed Tigers Victoria Frauzel and Teresa Martin 8-1. Laval earned a third doubles victory when Marie-Laurence Denis and Mathilde Langevin downed the pair of Paris Axam and Dora Ouarda 8-0 result.

 

The RSEQ champions carried that momentum into singles, with Di Battista downing Anna Nicolela 6-1, 6-2, while Denis, Thabet, Durocher, Émilie Corbett, and Quinn all won in straight sets, conceding just a handful of games across the board.

In total, Laval dropped only six games over 15 sets.

With the victory, the Rouge et Or advance to Saturday’s national final, where they will face the University of Alberta Pandas for the title. Dalhousie, representing the Atlantic region, will take on the University of Toronto Varsity Blues in the bronze medal match, also set for Saturday.

 

Pandas seek sixth straight title, topping Toronto 5-2

The University of Alberta Pandas are heading back to the national final after defeating the University of Toronto Varsity Blues 5-2 in the women’s semifinal at the 2025 Canadian University Tennis Championships on Thursday at Parc Saint-Victor.

The Pandas swept all three doubles matches in narrow fashion to earn the opening point, then added four more wins in singles to secure the tie and book their place in Saturday’s championship match.

Toronto pushed Alberta to the brink in doubles, but the Pandas emerged with three tight victories. Alexandra Jewitt and Emma Rutherford took the opening doubles match in a tiebreak, 8-7(2) over Toronto’s Winnie Wing Yee Choi and Kaira Xuan, while Emily Granson and Sonia Skobkareva won 8-6 over Anastasiya Dyadchenko and Maria Popova. The Pandas’ Marena Diaz Nakagawa and Sandra Taskovic edged the Toronto pair Felina Ziyan Yang and Barbora Závišková 8-6 to secure the doubles sweep.

In singles, Rutherford gave Alberta a 2-0 lead with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Winnie Wing Yee Choi. In the second singles match, Dyadchenko kept Toronto’s gold medal hopes alive with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Granson, but the Pandas responded with three straight wins from Jewitt, Skobkareva and Diaz Nakagawa to clinch the victory.

Toronto’s Noelle Vanasse Wilbert picked up the Varsity Blues’ second point of the day with a straight-sets win (6-3, 6-3) over Taskovic in the final singles match.

With the win, Alberta advances to Saturday’s final against Université Laval, where they will attempt to win their sixth straight title. The Varsity Blues will face Dalhousie in the bronze medal match, also set for Saturday.

 

The men’s championship begins on Friday with two matches, featuring the Western Mustangs taking on the Dalhousie Tigers and the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes facing the defending champion UBC Thunderbirds with the winners advancing to Sunday’s men’s final.