The Guyana Lawn Tennis Association (GLTA) has selected 10 of its most promising junior stars to attend the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Tennis Championships set for St Vincent and the Grenadines in August.
Guyana’s number one seed Gavin Lewis, Daniel Lopes, Benedict Sukra, Khalis Gobin and Judah Stephney have been selected to participate in the boys under-14 category of the August 16-21 championships. Number one seed Shawna Gentle will make her debut at the international tournament in the girls under-18 category. The talented Tanya Niamatali, Aruna Ramrattan and Krystal Sukra will also participate in the tourney along with Nicola Ramdhyan who is the only girl participating in the under-14 category. The players will first have to qualify in the preliminary games set for August 14 before they move on to the main draw and the official opening of the championships.
The grade five level tournament has been an integral part of tennis in St Vincent over the past three years and is a major calendar event for junior tennis in the Caribbean. Junior players from across the Caribbean regularly attend the tourney which features singles and doubles matches for the two age categories. Anthony Downes, Duainne Miller, Jonathan Antczak and Ezra Sue-Ho participated in the premier tourney in the boys under-18 category. No one from Guyana had participated in the event since 2007.
The players selected to attend this year’s championships will be chaperoned by their coach Shelly Daly-Ramdhyan.
In a telephone interview with Stabroek Sport Daly-Ramdhyan said she was confident that her players would give it their best shot but she acknowledged that the pressure was going to be on those participating in the girl’s under-18 category. “The girls will have it more difficult because they’re in a knock-out competition… they have to win to stay in, while the under-14 is not knock-out, they play round robin so they play for the entire time before the main draw,” she said.
Daly-Ramdhyan said this will in no way curb the player’s enthusiasm or impede their performance. “They will perform their best, they’re all excited, and most of them are seasoned players except Tanya and Shawna. This [is] Shawna’s first time in the 18, and this is Tanya’s first international ITF tournament. But I’m confident that they are going to put their best foot forward,” she said. She also stressed that participation at international tournaments is fundamental to the players’ growth in tennis as in addition to getting exposure to international competition it also affords them an opportunity to earn ITF points and subsequently ITF ranking. Daly-Ramdhyan said some of the junior players have already accumulated points.
Krystal and Benedict Sukra are also expected to participate in the Coca Cola ITF Junior Tennis Tournament in St Lucia from August 9-15. Daly-Ramdhyan said the GLTA will be hosting a number of fundraising activities to help offset expenses for the tourneys.
