Newly selected president of the Guyana Tennis Association (GTA) Ramesh Seebarran, says he has received assurances from the Ministry of Sports and Director of Sports of their support for lawn tennis and its development.
In a recent interview with Stabroek Sport, Seebarran said that he had already met with Minister of Sports, Dr. Frank Anthony and Director of Sports, Neil Kumar, to pave the way for an amicable relationship.
Seebarran, who was elected president of the GTA three weeks ago, said resolving the strained relationship with the Sports Ministry and the Director of Sports was high on his agenda.
Seebarran had raised the issue during his remarks at the GTA’s Annual General Meeting following his election.
His predecessor, Christopher Ram, had mentioned the ministry’s lack of support towards the sport over the past years.
Ram had referred to the lack of co-operation from the ministry in responding to the GTA over a Memorandum of Understanding submitted by the GTA pertaining to the use of courts at the Racquet Centre operated by the Ministry of Sports.
Seebarran said that plans are already underway to start a schools’ tennis programme at the courts, following discussions with the manager of the courts.
“I have met with the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport and Director of Sports and they both have given assurances of their support for the continued development of tennis,” he said.
“The Minister and Director have assured me of their support to regularize the use of the Non Pariel courts so that the association can start training forms one and two kids from schools within the vicinity.
In fact, based on a meeting we had with the Manager of the Racquet Centre/Ministry of Education, we should start to train kids from North Ruimveldt Secondary School on Monday [last], weather permitting,” Seebarran said.
In terms of new proposals, Seebarran said paying cash incentives to tournament winners is expected to get underway as soon as the annual MACORP Open which is expected to begin sometime later this month is staged.
Seebarran, who had previously served as the body’s secretary, acknowledged that he will expect finances to be a challenge since, he pointed out, most sports associations source their funding through fund-raisers, with occasional sponsorship from corporate companies and private individuals.
He explained that with tennis, when it comes to tournaments, generating revenue was often difficult.
“The truth is it’s going to be very challenging to make monies out of competitions. Before each tournament starts, we must submit a budget, and very often the sponsor will come back to say `well you know what this is what we can afford’ and so we have to rework the budget but we try our best and we’ve been able to work with them and we’ve found common grounds to extend their budget allocations. In the case of MACORP, for example, the budget that they are going to give us is a fairly reasonable one. I can say that with the MACORP tournament, there are going to be some cash contributions to the winners this year. It’s in the budget already,” Seebarran disclosed.
Seebrarran also revealed that the association had already begun the dissemination of tennis equipment with the stated intention of improving the standard of the game.
“We have started the process to distribute equipment received from ITF (International Tennis Federation) to clubs to further enhance their development and to expose young kids because the thrust of the plan is to make tennis accessible to as many kids and to enhance and develop more facilities,” he declared.
Seebarran highlighted the executive’s commitment to following the guidelines set out in its five-year plan, which was drawn up with input from Regional ITF Development Officer, Anthony Jeremiah.
The plan allows for the GTA to achieve nine public tennis courts by 2014 and 11 by 2016.
Currently the GLTA has record of five public tennis courts.
The plan also addresses the formation of sub committees, an item that the association recently set up last week. One of the main sub committee is the Junior Development Committee
“We have set up Sub-Committees one of which is the Junior Development Committee. This committee is responsible for ensuring that we continue to identify and train our junior players as part of our succession planning. Currently, our national coach, Shelly Daly-Ramdyhan is working with schools to promote tennis at the 10 years and under level. The ITF has provided us equipment to facilitate the training and Ramdyhan is assisted by other coaches,” Seebarran said.
Seebarran also expressed the association’s enthusiasm to get tennis training underway at the recently opened courts at President’s College.
