Over the past year lawn tennis has slowly been moving into the limelight with the GLTA taking steps to broaden junior players’ experience through participation in international tournaments and by introducing the sport in schools to scout up and coming talent.
The Guyana Lawn Tennis Association (GLTA) has taken steps to act on the advice of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to develop budding talent in primary school age children. It has successfully hosted two tournaments for students and its annual summer programme. Both programmes were monitored by ITF level two Coach Shelly Daly-Ramdyhan.
The proposal to start the sport in schools has been welcomed by the Ministry of Education. It is one of the few disciplines that has been implemented in schools. The primary school programme was also decentralized from Georgetown with the GLTA/ITF-sponsored 2010 Schools Tennis Initiative Programme in Berbice. The Association also took steps to install courts at secondary schools and the ministry has committed to installing courts at six schools. There is a paucity of facilities that inhibits the growth of the sport however, the GLTA is addressing this issue and has thus far secured sponsorship from Bakewell to construct courts at President’s College. The Association has also signed an MoU with the National Parks Commission to rehabilitate its courts. Works have also started on the courts at the Racquet Centre being built at Non Pariel by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.
Players often reach their peak as tournaments progress locally making it vital for them to go to the Caribbean to broaden their skills. In order to boost their skills the GLTA headed by Christopher Ram, sent the national junior players to compete in five tournaments within the region, four of which were ranked internationally by the ITF.
The series started with a five-member team participating in the ITF/IBM Junior International Championships held in Trinidad and Tobago in March. The team comprised Aruna Ramrattan, Krystal Sukra, Nicola Ramdyhan, Benedict Sukra, boys number one seed Gavin Lewis and Judah Stephney. Lewis and Ramdyhan were then joined by Aretta Dey, Khalif Gobin, and Daniel Lopes to contest the Under-14 World Juniors Tournament which was also held in Trinidad in March.
Later down during the August vacation Krystal, Benedict and Ramratttan participated in the Coca Cola ITF Tournament in St Lucia. The three were later joined by Lewis, Lopes and Ramdyhan for the ITF Junior Championships in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Things ended on the regional scene with the participation of Lopes, Ramdyhan and Dey. Though they did not gain winning positions, all the players delivered noteworthy performances particularly Lewis, Lopes and Ramdyhan.
The GLTA also held four local tournaments starting with the Trophy Stall Doubles which gained momentum with the re-introduction of the GBTI Open and ended with some surprising upsets at the Junior Nigel’s Open and Pegasus Open tournaments. Players braved adverse weather to compete which saw tournaments being scheduled throughout the year and resulted in the cancellation of the Banks Masters tournament which is expected to be held in the early part of 2011.
At the Junior Nigel’s Open there was a major upset when Saevion David-Longe beat boys junior number one player Lewis while at the Pegasus Open there was a stunning turnaround when Jeremy Miller won the men’s singles following his upset of the number one seed Phillip Squires.
In addition, the Dynamos Tennis Club hosted the Popeye’s Novices/ Intermediate Tournament for developing talent at Pegasus.
Meanwhile, several of the GLTA’s plans for the administrative level are expected to be held this year.
