Opening with a grand slam introduction, things began to falter for the young Guyanese tennis players as losses were registered for Guyana in yesterday’s edition of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) 13-and-Under Caribbean Development Champion-ships underway in Curacao.
The three males who earned their way through the qualifiers to advance to the main draw, began to wane as they suffered losses to the Netherlands Antilles, Antigua and Trinidad.
In the girls category, Guyana’s Nicola Ramdyhan recorded a 6 – 1, 6 – 4 loss against Daynisja Ricardo from the Netherlands Antilles.
This follows her loss on Tuesday against former adversary, D’Jeri Raymond, in the qualifying draw. Ramdyhan crumbled against the dexterity of Raymond to face her second defeat of the month against her Antiguan archrival.
Losing Tuesday’s first set 2 – 4, Ramdyhan counter-attacked as she applied the pressure in the second set to terrorize Raymond, as she sent the set to a tight tie breaker. However, for the lead of two points, Raymond captured the tiebreaker to trump Ramdyham 4 – 4 (8 – 6) in victory.
Raymond delivered a similar fate to Ramdyhan’s compatriot Aretta Dey. Dey lost to Raymond 6 – 0, 6 – 2.
Ramdyhan and Dey will now compete for 9 – 10 positions out of the competition that featured seventeen participants.
Meanwhile, with Guyana’s Daniel Lopes suffering from knee injuries in his match-up with Trinidad’s Gianluc Robinson, the Trinidadian optimized on the opportunity to avenge his Monday’s thrashing from Lopes. Having beaten Robinson 4 – 1, 4 – 2 on Monday, the injuries impeded Lopes from a repeat performance as he was humbled as Robinson basked in a 7 – 5, 6 – 4 win.
On Tuesday, playing a concise format that features the first to four games emerging the winner, Lopes had suffered his first loss of the tournament to Tjimon Louisy, ending 4-0 5-3 in Louisy’s favour.