Tennis Yukon players headed into last weekend's Capital Cup Challenge with some good news.

The group heard Friday that the $15,000 recreation grant to resurface the courts had been approved.

"I can hardly put it into words,” Tennis Yukon president Stacy Lewis said. "We've been advocating for this since 2007, and it's finally going to go ahead. It's so exciting, and it really feels like a great step forward in the development of tennis in the Yukon and the club and association.”

Tennis Yukon had known the grant was approved earlier this month. However, the sum was unknown until last week, when Juneau tennis players arrived in Whitehorse to play for the seventh Capital Cup.

The $15,000 was the missing piece in a job that will cost roughly $45,000. The Community Development Fund (CDF) contributed $20,000, and Lotteries Yukon and Tennis Yukon each contributed $5,000.

The job is planned to start the week of July 11.

The court surface will be a layer of acrylic atop asphalt, Lewis explained. The court will be deep blue surrounded by green on the outside.

"We were pretty happy in general. That was quite fun too. Juneau players were interested in that, there was a lot of talk and buzz about the new surface.”

The news was especially gratifying as the Tennis Yukon players prepared to take on the Alaskans for the seventh Capital Cup.

Unfortunately the outcome was not what the Yukoners had hoped for.

Juneau edged Whitehorse 182-150 in the one-game pro set format to bring the Cup back to the Alaska capital.

Whitehorse won the spring edition of the tournament in Juneau in March, the second time the Yukoners won since the series restarted in 2008.

Lewis said the series really has traction.

"People are excited, people want to try and win it,” she said. "It just makes you feel good when you think it's an exciting event and exciting opportunity and you put it out there and it really feels like people have responded and enjoy it. It's a great sister city exchange. It's really exciting to see it established, and every time we play it it just feels more permanent; it feels like it's something that's going to be around to stay,” Lewis said.

Big matches included Tennis Yukon coach Jan Polivka and Vancouver pro Gerry Macken teaming up to defeat Juneau's premier players Vini Lata and Steve Hamilton 8-1.

The closest match was between Yukoners Mike Russo and Ryan Lane versus Lata and Colin O'Brian.

The Alaskans took that match 8-7 after a 7-7 tiebreaker.

"Our top players were really playing well and winning their matches; that middle layer of players for Juneau was really getting some big 8-1, 8-2 wins,” Lewis said.

"It means that the bigger the spread, the more important the win is. When you win 8-7, the losing team doesn't really lose that much and the winning team doesn't win that much.”

Eight players from Juneau made the trip to Whitehorse, which meant the visitors had twice as many matches, Lewis added.

"They pretty much played all Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Their opponents just kept switching; all the Whitehorse people want to play the Juneau people because it's somebody different. But they end up playing a lot more matches. It happens to us when we go there too.”

The Capital Cup Challenge was started in the early '90s as a friendly capital-city challenge between Alaska and the Yukon.

The Challenge was restarted in 2008, and is played indoors in Juneau in the spring and outdoors in Whitehorse in the summer.