NIAGARA, Canada – Virginia women’s tennis sophomore Mélodie Collard and freshman Annabelle Xu won a gold in the tennis mixed team competition at the 2022 Canada Games being held Aug. 6-21 in Niagara, Canada.
The Canada Games (also known as the Jeux du Canada) is a multi-sport event held every two years, representing the highest level of national competition for Canadian athletes.
Both Collard and Xu competed for Team Quebéc in the tennis mixed team competition.
The tennis mixed team competition is contested as a round-robin tournament that determines seeding for the championship bracket that will determine the gold and silver medals. Teams eliminated from the championship bracket move to the placement bracket that determines the bronze medal. Each tie consists of two women’s matches, two men’s matches, and one each of men’s and women’s doubles matches.
Quebéc went 3-0 in pool play with a 5-1 win against British Columbia and Alberta and a 4-2 victory against Ontario. Both Collard and Xu went 3-0 in their singles matches in pool play.
Quebéc topped Newfoundland and Labrador 4-2 on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the championship bracket with Xu picking up a singles win and Collard winning in doubles. The team topped Alberta 5-1 in the semifinals to set up a meeting against British Columbia in the finals.
Collard won her singles match 7-6 (2), 6-1 to help give Quebéc a 3-1 lead, but BC won the final two matches to tie it up 3-3, forcing a mixed doubles match to decide the medals. Collard partnered with Maxime St.-Hilaire in the decider. The duo bounced back after dropping the first set 7-5 to win the second 6-4. In a 10-point super tiebreaker to decide the match and the championship, the Quebéc duo pulled out a 10-4 victory to secure the gold.