In his toughest tennis tournament to date, Yukoner Kieran Halliday managed to achieve one of his best all-time finishes in the sport.

The 12-year-old came in second place along with doubles partner Alexei Zaroubo at the recently held Stanley Park Tennis Tournament in B.C.

"There was a lot of communication between us," Halliday said about playing with Zaroubo. "I was very pleased."

This was the second out-of-territory tennis tournament Halliday has participated in this season. The first was held in Yellowknife back in July.

In Stanley Park, Kieran participated in the U-12 division, entering both the singles and doubles divisions.

Halliday and Zaroubo, who resides in Burnaby, B.C., didn't waste anytime getting off on the right note in doubles competition. The two polished off their opponents from North Vancouver by the decisive score of 6-0 and 6-1.

The victory placed the pair in the semi-finals, where they went up against the number one seeded team in the division. The competition was a little steeper, but the end result was the same, giving the Yukon and B.C. teammates a berth in the finals.

Although Halliday and Zaroubo played two hard fought sets, they ended up dropping the match by the close score of 6-4, 7-6.

Halliday also showed off his skills in the singles draw, winning his first round matchup by the score of 6-2, 7-5.

The second match featured two close sets, but Halliday wouldn't be denied the victory, winning the match 6-4, 6-4, which qualified him for the quarter finals.

In quarter final competition, Halliday went up against the second ranked player in the division. He ended up losing the match in a marathon three sets, which went into a tie-breaker. The score was 6-2 2-6 7-6 and 7-4 in the tiebreaker.

This is one of the larger tennis tournaments hosted in B.C. and had a total of 1,100 players, who participated.

The only other Yukon at the tennis tournament was Halliday's younger sister, Aline.

Aline, 11, competed in the Rick's Rookie Tour, which is a division for kids, which is run as an introduction to tennis competitions.

The kids in the Rick's Rookie Tour played a round robin style, which involved playing as many games as they could get in the 25 minute time limit.

Aline improved upon her results by winning a match in her final day of the competition.

Stacy Lewis, President of the Tennis Yukon Association, said it was good experience for Aline competing in Stanley Park.

"This was really her first time playing outside of Whitehorse and it was full court tennis, which she hasn't played very much of," she said. "The Rick's Rookie Tour division, there is a whole series of them across the lower main land through the summer. They get a lot of people, so she really got to play just a lot of different players in the course of those two days, which was great."

Lewis said Halliday exceeded her expectations with how well he performed in Stanley Park.

"I thought he did just super," she said. "We were really unsure of how he would do and to get the quarter finals in the singles and then the finals in the doubles was really beyond what we had expected."

The next tennis tournament that will be held in Whitehorse will be the territorial championships. The tournament is being put on by the Tennis Yukon Association and it will be held at the end of August in Whitehorse.

The championships are open to anyone in the Yukon and will feature both an adult and a junior category.

Tennis Yukon is hoping to select a junior team of four athletes to attend the 2009 Canada Summer Games.

Lewis said they will be looking at the competitors in the championships' junior division to determine whether a team can be selected for the Canada Games.

"We would like to send at least a couple of players that would be really exciting for us," she said. "We could take a team of eight and I'm not sure we will have eight players, but we may have four. Two boys, two girls would be best case scenario."

Registration for the territorial championships can be done by emailing Lewis at tennisyukon@mac.com.