Kristian Kiland has made it a habit of acing his tests as a chemistry major at Doane College in Nebraska and has a near-perfect grade point average to show for it.
He's also been serving up aces on college tennis courts and that helped his bottom line in Kelowna at the Lakeview Heights Open tournament, where the Prince George Tennis Club pro turned in his best-ever finish, losing in the men's singles final in three sets to Jeremy Bell of Vernon.
For the 19-year-old Kiland, having just finished his first season as a scholarship athlete at Doane, the chance to play Bell and West Martin of Sicamous two weekends ago was a measuring gauge of his progress. Bell took the final, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, which came after Kiland scored an upset win over Martin in the singles semifinal.
"I've played Jeremy a couple times and lost pretty handily both times so I guess I've improved quite a bit," said Kiland.
"The guys I play in college are around my level so I couldn't really tell if I'm improving that much. But then I finally got to test my game against somebody I've already played so I could measure it. West and Jeremy are both in their 40s and have been playing for a long time and I'm still not as physically strong as they are, because they're men."
Kiland advanced to the men's singles final for the first time and teamed up with his 29-year-old brother Jim Condon to place second in the A doubles event.
Unlike previous years, when Kiland had to put tennis on hold during the cold-weather months in the absence of an indoor facility in Prince George, he's starting the outdoor season on top of his game. He's fit, he's used to playing high-level competition and he can't wait for his next opportunity to show how much he's refined his game at the Prince George Tennis Club's new digs adjacent to the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.
"Every year I peak at the end of the summer but then I break for winter and come back kind of rusty and have to redo it, but last summer I went to school and kept playing through the whole winter and came back still playing," said the six-foot-two Kiland. "That might be one of the reasons I beat West."
The Tigers compete in the NAIA Great Plains Athletic Conference and lost 5-0 to eventual champion Hastings College in the GPAC team tennis semifinal, May 2. The college tennis season runs from February to early May. The team plays exhibition matches in the fall and concentrates on indoor practices and gym workouts in the winter months.
"We got to play one of the best Division 2 schools in the nation, the University of Nebraska-Kearney, and they go to nationals every year," said Kiland. "The team atmosphere is really cool and I'd never experienced that either. It's really nice when you hit a good shot and hear your whole team cheering for you.
"That's another weird thing about team tennis is your coach is on the court with you. At any tournament here you can't coach during a match but in college you have your coach and assistant coach roaming the court during the matches. For the most part I know what I have to do to win, but it's still really nice to hear someone else's opinion."
The Doane team has 15 male players. The top eight are make up the varsity team. Team events consist of six singles matches and three doubles matches. The Tigers went 2-3 in GPAC matches and 8-10 overall. Kiland, the third-ranked men's singles player at Doane, compiled a 9-5 win-loss record. He lost just one match in conference play and was named to the GPAC All-Conference team.
Kiland, a Kelly Road secondary school graduate, received a half-ride athletic/academic scholarship worth about $14,000 per year. He's hoping his 4.0 GPA will help him improve his scholarship status when he returns in the fall.
The Doane campus is located in Crete, Neb., a town of about 7,000, 43 kilometres southwest of the state capital in Lincoln. Nebraska has the geographic misfortune of being located in the heart of tornado alley, where violent storms are frequent occurrences. Kiland, a member of the Delta Kappa Pi fraternity, had a close brush with disaster in a few weeks ago.
"One came too close to the school for my liking and our whole dorm had to go down in the basement," said Kiland. "It just out of nowhere. It was a nice day and then suddenly it just got brutal, raining in all directions and insane wind. I remembered I left my dorm room open and ran upstairs, closed the window and ran back downstairs. It wasn't the best idea."
Kiland and Nolan Schwab have been hired as the Prince George club pros to teach lessons this summer. The club is hosting the Prince George Junior Ice Breaker tournament this Saturday and Sunday.
Kiland's next tournament action will be at the Prince George Open, June 13-15.
