Kale Dal­la Cos­ta was the lone bright spot for T&T as he stormed to a straight sets win in his open­ing match when the Trin­i­ty Cup In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) Ju­nior Tour­na­ment served off at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre, Or­ange Grove Road, Tacarigua, Mon­day.

The first ju­nior men’s play­er to be seed­ed num­ber one for an ITF Ju­nior Tour­na­ment, Dal­la Cos­ta, a semi­fi­nal­ist in the Sun­shine Snacks Tran­quil­li­ty Ten­nis Open, re­cent­ly dom­i­nat­ed the USA’s Gi­an­lu­ca Galas­so 6-3, 6-2 in their round-of-32 meet­ing and next meets Chi­na’s Zi­cong Wang, who pow­ered past Grena­da’s Ru­el Hy­po­lite in their open­ing round match-up.

How­ev­er, the oth­er lo­cal play­ers in ac­tion, in­clu­sive of Zach­ery Byng, Jay­den Mitchell, Javed Dowlat, Con­nor Car­ring­ton, Ni­rav Dougdeen, and Jo­van Garib­ana among the boys, and Madi­son Khan and Shiloh Walk­er among the girls, were all beat­en to ex­it the main draw at the first hur­dle.

Byng, who won the men’s dou­bles ti­tle in the Sun­shine Snacks Tran­quil­li­ty Ten­nis Open, re­cent­ly went un­der to Bar­ba­di­an Lu­cas Davis 6-7(5), 1-6; Mitchell was oust­ed by St Lu­cian Al­hil Cyril 1-6, 4-6; Dowlat was pun­ished by the USA’s Diego Pesciot­ta 0-6, 0-6; Car­ring­ton was oust­ed by Bar­ba­di­an Aidan Clarke 1-6, 1-6; and Dougdeen was brushed aside by the US Vir­gin Is­lands’ Yared Al­fred 3-6, 1-6, while the USA’s Shaun Fer­nan­do boot­ed Garib­ana 6-2, 6-0.

Levi Tay­lor of Great Britain cre­at­ed the biggest up­set of the day when he stunned top-ranked Oliv­er Aguilar Gasperin of Mex­i­co 6-3, 6-4, and will play Cyril next, while Cana­da’s Marc-Edouard Lal­li­er hum­bled third-seed­ed Colter Aimey of the USA. 1-6, 7-5, 6-2

In the girls draw, France’s El­ly-Rose Hude­bine whipped Khan 6-1, 6-2, and Walk­er was de­feat­ed by Colom­bian Es­te­fana Vi­vas 1-6, 4 for the last two spots in the round of 16, where T&T’s Em-Myr­i­am Camp­bell-Smith, ranked sixth and the lone lo­cal re­main­ing in the draw, faces Cana­da’s Alyssa Bel­tel.

Match­es re­sume to­day from 9 am with boys’ and girls’ round-of-16 match­es.

Mon­day’s oth­er re­sults

Boys Un­der-18 round-of-32: Paulo Gon­za­lez (Col) bt Tyler Davis (B’dos) 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-3; Gadin Arun (USA) bt Matheus Taule (Bra) 6-0, 6-1; Achil­leas Markis (Cyp) bt Lukas Ra­dosavl­je­vic (Can) 6-2, 6-0; Aidan Lam Meng Bart (USA) bt Ri­car­do Winkel (Cur) 6-3, 6-1; Bernar­do Tedesco (Bra) bt Ryan Bed­wick (USA) 6-1, 6-4; Jose Ar­ge­nal (Gua) bt An­dre Lam Jun Bart (HKG) 6-3, 7-6 (3).