T&T's junior Fed Cup Tennis team of Isabelle Abraham, Aalisha Alexis and Keesa Lee Young will attempt to better the performances of their boys' counterparts at the recently concluded junior Davis Cup tournament in El Salvador.
The T&T boys team finished their Davis Cup campaign with a comprehensive 3-0 triumph over Nicaragua which placed them seventh overall. Success came courtesy singles' victory by Kyle Kerry over Luis Marquez 6-4, 6-1, while Kamran Mc Intosh-Ross prevailed over Jurgen Espinoza 5-2 after the latter eventually retired hurt.
The T&T juniors later put the icing on the cake with a hard-fought 1-6, 6-3 (10-5) by Ebolum Nwokolo and Kerry over the pair of Marquez and Juan Pablo Guerrero in the doubles. But coach Ivor Grazette lamented the inexperience of his players which may have prevented a better showing at the tournament.
Yesterday Carlista Mohammed, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Tennis Association of T&T said the young female players will face the same challenge of inexperience but once they put their best foot forward they can produce results that the whole of T&T will be proud of, starting today.
The trio of Abraham, Alexis and Lee Young left on Saturday with coach Anthony Jeremiah and will attempt to defy the odds at the February 11-16 tournament. According to Mohammed, a former national standout whom has won nearly every Women's title she competed in on local soil, "The girls have a very good chance of gaining much-needed experience and once they put their best foot forward, they will make the country proud, regardless of the results."
Unlike the boys' team, the trio touched down in El Salvador on Saturday, two days before the start of the tournament, which means they would have gotten some much-needed practice in. The draw to determine the matchups took place late yesterday and it included players from Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, USA and US Virgin Islands.
Last year the T&T team of Solange Skeene, Yin Lee Assang and Victoria Koylass placed ninth out of 11 teams.