Sudbury is hardly the mecca of youth tennis development in Canada - and Avery Alexander knows this.

So for as much as the 14 year old local product is eternally grateful for all of the help she has received from the folks at the Sudbury Indoor Tennis Centre and for as much as she recognizes the in-roads that have been made in the sport in the nickel city, she also knows that it's time to spread her wings, just a little bit more.

The very dedicated teen has cracked the top ten in the country in the Girls Under 16 Singles rankings, one of only five young women born after January 1st (2009) to work their way into that grouping.

This on the heels of a winter spent fine-tuning her craft at the Gomez Tennis Academy in Naples (Florida). "Over the course of the year, there were improvements in the overall strength of my game," noted Alexander.

"The biggest parts were probably my ground strokes and my serve."

Following a breakthrough win at a tournament in Guadeloupe, Alexander went on to capture USVI (U.S. Virgin Islands) Cup 1, sliding in as runner-up in USVI Cup 2 as well as at the ITF Jamaica Junior International last spring.

Little surprise given a very hectic schedule that the summer was spent "winding down", to some degree - still training pretty much every day but not quite as "tennis immersed" as she was in the Sunshine State.

The simple truth is that injury prevention is almost as important as the tennis training itself.

Recent months, however, have focused more and more on a process of re-working her forehand, breaking it down completely to ensure that it is better positioned for progress as her physical maturity continues.

Blessed with genetics that suggest a pending growth spurt any time soon, Alexander is anxious for everything to build towards the summer of 2025, a critical junction as she looks to establish herself even more on the Tennis Canada radar, looking to pursue a professional career on the heels of her high-school studies.

"I am the smallest kid in almost every single tournament," said the grade nine student-athlete. Perhaps this is a blessing, at least for now, as opponents are quite regularly caught off-guard by the quality of her game, despite her modest stature.

With a Universal Tennis Ranking (UTR) of 8.75, Alexander is well within range of what American colleges tend to look for - from 8.5 (lower end D1 - top end D2 schools) to 10.5 (top D1 schools) - and she still has three more years of secondary schooling remaining.

(UTR is a globally utilized method of tiering any tennis talent who participates in a sanctioned tournament - also an ideal way to find near ideal competition)

"If you're a girl who is an 8.0, you can play a boy whose an 8.0; you can play a 50 year old man whose an 8.0," noted Alexander. "It compares you constantly with everyone else."

And so she leaves again, heading off to Florida, the well-accepted mecca of tennis for the eastern half of North America, looking to continue her progress, all while representing the city she loves.

A GoFund Me account has been established to assist Avery Alexander in the pursuit of her athletic dreams - https://gofund.me/9d66a183