WALTER ALIBEY
T&T Davis Cup team of Akiel Duke, Luke De Caires, Richard Chung and Brandon Tom received a baptism of fire from the high altitude conditions at the Club de Tenis in La Paz, Bolivia where they spent most of the tournament in the sick-bay rather than on the courts last week.
The team lost all four matches, going down 0-3 to Costa Rica and 1-2 to Honduras, before surrendering 0-3 to the Bahamas and 1-2 to Bermuda in their final match.
Yesterday coach Dunstan De Noon said his players struggled to cope under the four-degree centigrade conditions despite arriving four days in advance.
According to De Noon; "When we got to Bolivia, our number one ranked player Duke was suffering from altitude sickness and had to be taken to be examined as his pulse and heart rates were not where it should have been."
Duke missed the opening game, throwing off De Noon's plan to use him early. "My intention was to use Duke and De Caires in the opening two games and then combine Duke and Chung for the doubles, but that did not work out. Apart from Duke's illness, Chung also experienced food poisoning."
Duke's entry to the court came after medical personnel had to administer oxygen for him to play against Honduras, which he lost. De Noon said the young University of T&T player was out of it totally but he was forced to use him as De Caires had been drained from his early encounter while Chung battled food poisoning. According to De Noon, he too got food poisoning before the final game against Bermuda which he could not attend.
De Noon, an ex tennis ace told the Guardian; "I think the players tried their best considering the situation. I have made a recommendation to the Tennis Association of T&T to give players at least nine days when going into high altitude conditions to play in the future. I have played at high altitude in the past but it just was not as bad as this time," De Noon said.
Meanwhile secretary of the TATT Jermille Danclar said his association did not get sufficient time to accumulate the funds when they found out the tournament was being played in Bolivia. "We tried to send them five days in advance but we were unsure and when we found out, we literally had to scrape to get the players there four days in advance," Danclar said.
Danclar, an ex tennis stand-out noted that his players are all relatively young, which means they would have garnered experience for future matches. Duke is 21 years, De Caires 23 and Tom is 17 years.
"Basically, with the exception of De Caires who plays in the US, our other players have only played locally, which was a main factor," Danclar said.