CLUJ, February 8, 2018
Tennis Canada announced on Wednesday that Katherine Sebov, who recently celebrated her 19th birthday in January, has been awarded the Rene Simpson-Collins Excellence Award, given to an outstanding female junior player that exhibits the same important values and traits as the award’s namesake. The annual honour, named in memory of the former player, coach, and Fed Cup captain, will provide Sebov with a $2,000 scholarship to help offset costs related to her training and development.
“We are very pleased to be awarding the Rene Simpson-Collins Excellence Award to Katherine,” said Hatem McDadi, Senior Vice President of Tennis Development at Tennis Canada. “Katherine demonstrates many of the values that were important to Rene. She has put in a lot of hard work over the past few years. Her efforts were rewarded last year with her notable rise in the WTA rankings. Katherine also made her Fed Cup debut in 2017 and has shown a lot of pride and dedication playing in events where she represents her country. She certainly deserves this honour and undoubtedly has a bright future. We would like to congratulate Katherine for all her success and we know that Rene would be very proud of her accomplishments.”
Sebov becomes the second recipient of the Rene Simpson-Collins Excellence Award, after Bianca Andreescu received the inaugural award last year. Sebov is currently competing in Fed Cup by BNP Paribas for a third time as Team Canada is taking part in a World Group II first round tie against Romania. Sebov proudly represented her country in her first Fed Cup experience last February when she registered three wins in singles and one win in doubles to help Canada secure a perfect record in Americas Zone Group I action. During the past year, she rose from 570th to 242nd in the WTA rankings by notably reaching the final at the $50,000 Granby National Bank Challenger and the semi-final at the $100,000 Midland Challenger.
A Rene Simpson-Collins Excellence Award will also be presented to a female tennis coach who demonstrates the potential to reach the highest levels of coaching excellence in Canada. This $2,000 scholarship will be administered through the Tennis Professionals Association (TPA) as part of their National Coaching Conference.
About Rene Simpson-Collins
For many years, Simpson-Collins was an important and influential member of the Canadian tennis community. During her years playing on the professional circuit, she reached a career-high ranking of world no. 70 before helming the nation’s Fed Cup team as captain from 2001 to 2010. She passed away in October 2013 after a year-long battle with brain cancer. This award was created to honour her legacy in developing Canadian women’s tennis and her positive and long-lasting contributions both on and off the court.
About the Rene Simpson-Collins Excellence Award
The award is presented each year to a young female player who has shown the potential to reach the highest levels of tennis internationally, while also exhibiting the same values Simpson-Collins believed in, including sportsmanship, professionalism, honesty, integrity, courage, pride and passion.
