-players now more determined to conquer handicaps
– Daly-Ramdyhan
Fresh off a circuit of three regional tournaments in August, the nine national junior tennis players who participated in tournaments in St Lucia, Barbados and Curacao have already begun to show improvement in their game, coach Shelly Daly-Ramdyhan said.
In an interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday, Daly-Ramdyhan said training for the players have resumed since the last group of players returned. Selected by the Guyana Lawn Tennis Association (GLTA), the players opened with a three-member participation at the Coca Cola International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Tournament that was held in St Lucia from August 9 – 14.
National junior tennis players Aruna Ramrattan, Krystal Sukra and her brother Benedict started play in St Lucia before heading to St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), where they were joined by Shawna Gentle, Nicola Ramdyhan, Gavin Lewis, Daniel Lopes, Khalif Gobin and Judah Stephaney to participate in the SVG ITF Junior Tennis Tournament held from August 16 – 21.
In SVG, Ramdyhan was the first of the group to be selected to the main draw. The only female in the under-14 category, she won two matches in the round robin qualifiers having thrashed Roberta Haslam (4 – 1, 4 – 0) and Luka Lyttle (4 – 0, 4 – 0) to get qualify. However, Ramdyhan was eventually cut down by Antigua’s D’Jeri Raymond, in the quarterfinals. The 12-year-old told this newspaper that she is pleased with her performance in the two tourneys, identifying her back hand as her impediment.
“Before I got beaten by D’Jeri I felt very good, what really failed me was my backhand, I lost key points because of my backhand. Before I left I was trying to work on it, and while I was in St Vincent before the game I was trying work on it, and my backhand was getting better and I played good for some of my matches, but some the players were more experienced,” Ramdyhan said “I’m just happy that I was chosen by the GLTA for the tournaments, and I just thankful that they sent me, because I’m already feeling the improvements,” she added.
Ramdyhan was also one of three players who participated in the 13 and Under Developmental Tennis Tournament that was held in Curacao. She placed ninth out of 18 players that took part in the girls division.
Guyana’s boy’s number one seed Gavin Lewis also showed off his talent in SVG. After Lewis was knocked out of the main draw he soon bounced back in the boys 14 consolation division. After securing wins against Justin Robinson, Shane Mustor and Guyana’s own Benedict Sukra, Lewis buffed up his performance with the ultimate victory in a final win against Guyana’s number two seed Daniel Lopes.
Lewis said he had a strategy in place for each of his matches. “To win it took a lot of hard work and perseverance. In order for me to win my matches I had to come up with a strategy on how to get an edge to help me win the match. It took a lot of mental strength because if at one point the plan wasn’t working then you had to come up with another game plan,” he said.
Meanwhile, in the girls 18 category, Aruna Ramrattan made her way to the sixteenth round f the main draw after she dealt a 6 – 2, 6 – 3 beating to SVG fifth seeded player Olivia Haslam . However, uneasiness hampered the 16-year-old when she took on one of the tournaments finalists Germany’s Jasmin Jebawy. Ramrattan told Stabroek Sport that while she was trying to keep positive and not be intimidated, having seen Jebawy’s previous performance in St Lucia she was apprehensive. “I tried my best but her game was very hard and she was very consistent with her game. And I was just nervous because I saw her play in St Lucia and I knew that she had good game and that just kind of psyched me I guess….But since I’ve been back it’s all about practice, practice, practice so that I can improve my game the next time around,” she shared.
Nonetheless, Ramrattan is very proud of her win against Haslam. “Against Haslam I felt confident I knew what I was doing, I played out my game and I was god at it and I’m just glad that I was able to get that,” she said.
Following the SVG matches Ramdyhan and Lopes were joined by Aretta Dey for Guyana’s participation in Curacao. Lopes placed thirteenth out of the 26 players in the boys division, reaping wins against Jahrell Massicott, Gianluc Robinson, Yigal Bergen and Edward Buckley. Later, he also won in the doubles category when he teamed up with Malik Levems to defeat a team of Malik Jones and O’Neil Mortimer.
Coach Daly-Ramdyhan stressed that the tournament has done wonders for the determination of the players, as most have moved on to individually identifying their weak points and have illustrated their commitment to working to get past their deficiencies.
“Overall the teams’ performance was really good. Some of them had some really tough matches, especially for the girls, Shawna had to play the number one seed from Barbados in her match in St Vincent,” she said.
Daly-Ramdyhan said she was very pleased with the players that shone with their performances, but she also understood the tough competition that some of them came up against. “More or less Nicola was the most outstanding of the players. Performance wise, Daniel was one of the better players at both [of his] tournaments. Aruna wasn’t as hard as Krystal and Shawna but she played very well. But in the second round she had to play against one of the tournaments finalists so her chances were a bit tough,” Ramdyhan explained.
Additionally, President of the Association Christopher Ram said he was satisfied with the team’s performance. “I think overall the GLTA is pretty satisfied with the overall performance of the players that went out there. They went out and they gave of their best, from all reports from the coach they heeded what we told them before they left, they fought for their points,” he said in a telephone interview with this newspaper.
Ram relayed that the performances were indicative of a gradually rise in the development of tennis among the juniors in Guyana as the performances surpassed those of the past. “Whilst we obviously would have looked forward to more, with their performance they are now at least in the median level which is good rise from the low base at bottom where they a year ago, so it shows that we are definitely rising And we will continue to work with them, and others coming out of the junior programmes to develop them to stronger levels,” he added.
