A contingent of four Guyanese lawn tennis players will make the country’s first appearance at the International Tennis Federation/ COTECC Under-12 final tournament this upcoming week in Trinidad and Tobago.
The team of Paula Kalekyezi, Menikshi Jaikisson and Renola Jordan along with their coach, Shelly Daly-Ramdyhan will travel to the twin-island republic where they will create history for the South American mainland.
The team had qualified for this event earlier this month in Trinidad after reaching the final of the qualifying tournament where they lost to the hosts.
According to the coach, since their return, the team has been going through extensive training at the various courts in the capital although one of the players missed two weeks of training.
Daly-Ramdyhan, the National Sports Commission’s coach of the year explained that, “we tried to intensify some of the things we wanted to work on, I think we would have completed 75 percent of that,” but conceded that they are still “fine tuning their preparations.”
She pointed out that mental and strength training were two of the main aspects of their preparation which she reckoned is needed to execute well in this competition. Daly-Ramdyhan accepted that she is not expecting Guyana to win the tournament since they will be coming up against “much stronger and experienced sides,” such as Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Guatemala and the hosts.
However, she was confident that the team can take away a lot of experience and learn a lot from competing against a higher standard of opponents.
