A three-girls' team com­pris­ing Tei­ja Welling­ton, Anaya Roberts, the daugh­ter of for­mer Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs and swim­ming coach Anil Roberts, and Suriya Ram­dath, will leave lo­cal shores ear­ly on Sat­ur­day en route to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic for the 2025 ITF/COTECC U-12 Sub Re­gion 4 Mas­ters Tour­na­ment.

The trio booked their place at the tour­na­ment fol­low­ing their tri­umph at the ITF/COTECC U-12 Team Com­pe­ti­tion Sub Re­gion 4, which took place Ju­ly 6-11 at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Or­ange Grove, Tacarigua.

That com­pe­ti­tion fea­tured teams from 18 oth­er na­tions, in­clud­ing An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, An­guil­la, Aru­ba, Bar­ba­dos, Bonaire, Cu­ra­cao, Do­mini­ca, French Guyana, Grena­da, Guade­loupe, Guyana, Mar­tinique, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia, St Mar­teen, St Vin­cent, Suri­name, and the US Vir­gin Is­lands.

Should they do well in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, they will ad­vance to the next phase of the tour­na­ment in South Amer­i­ca, said Hay­den Mitchell, pres­i­dent of the Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T.

T&T had two girls’ teams and as many boys’ teams in that tour­na­ment in Ju­ly, but on­ly the win­ners ad­vanced.

The young ten­nis girls will have a prac­tice day on Sun­day and then com­pe­ti­tion ac­tion from Mon­day un­til Sep­tem­ber 24, when T&T will cel­e­brate Re­pub­lic Day.

The T&T girls have been pooled in a group that fea­tures Mex­i­co, Hon­duras, and the host na­tion (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic).

Yes­ter­day, coach Dar­celle Charles said she ex­pects a lot from her young play­ers at the tour­ney.

“The play­ers are all ex­cit­ed about the tour­na­ment, and I think they will in­crease the lev­el of their per­for­mance when they get there. We had three week­ends of in­ten­sive train­ing, and they have al­so been giv­en a pro­gramme each to fol­low to im­prove their per­for­mances,” Charles said.

When asked about the pro­gramme, Charles said, “It is re­al­ly a guide for the play­ers to fol­low, what they should do and what they should not do, to en­sure that they com­pete at a high lev­el in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.”

Charles added, “I ac­tu­al­ly ex­pect the girls to pro­duce their high­est lev­el of ten­nis and do well. I be­lieve that when they see the lev­el they’ll have to per­form at, they will rise to the oc­ca­sion.”

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, it will be the first in­ter­na­tion­al out­ing for the young ten­nis play­ers.