RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

rachael.king@guardian.co.tt

Lead­ing youth ten­nis play­ers Louis Kalle Dal­la Cos­ta and Em-Myr­i­am Camp­bell-Smith are among 15 lo­cal ath­letes who will be serv­ing off at the Sagi­cor Ju­nior In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Tour­na­ment in Saint Lu­cia, start­ing to­mor­row.

The duo along with No­vak Mal­colm, Christo­pher George-Khan, Oliv­er Har­ra­gin, Ja­cob Jacelon, Cyra Jayne Ram­cha­ran, Suri Ann Ram­cha­ran, Ab­ba Camp­bell Smith, Aaron Subero, Yeshowah Camp­bell-Smith, Shiloh Walk­er, Madi­son Khan, Arya Siewrat­tan and Iso­bel Al­leyne, will be com­pet­ing against ath­letes from 14 oth­er coun­tries. They are St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent & the Grenadines, Grena­da, In­dia, Suri­name, Guyana, USA, Mex­i­co, Cana­da, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, St Kitts & Nevis, The Ba­hamas, and El Sal­vador.

The in­ter­na­tion­al ju­nior ten­nis tour­na­ment was launched at the Jonathan H Everett Con­fer­ence Room, Olympic House, Le Clery in Cas­tries yes­ter­day with re­marks from Stephen Mc­Na­ma­ra, pres­i­dent, St Lu­cia Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion, Sher­lon Leon, Sales Man­ag­er, St Lu­cia; Sagi­cor Life (East­ern Caribbean) Inc, the spon­sor, and Sar­alee Williams, Sports Of­fi­cer, Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sports.

Mc­Na­ma­ra was pleased to wel­come the re­turn of the tour­na­ment and thanked Sagi­cor for part­ner­ing with the As­so­ci­a­tion once again to pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for our ath­letes and by ex­ten­sion the rest of the re­gion.

He said, “Sev­er­al things hap­pened over the past five years that led to this sig­nif­i­cant name change from COTECC to In­ter­na­tion­al. Due to the lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion by the re­gion and the rest of the world, St Lu­cia was able to at­tract play­ers and coach­es from out­side our re­gion - this was be­cause of the event be­ing changed from a grade three to a grade one. As a re­sult, it is now the Sagi­cor Ju­nior In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Tour­na­ment. Due to the sup­port of or­gan­i­sa­tions like Sagi­cor the tour­na­ment was rec­og­nized as one of the most suc­cess­ful tour­na­ments in the re­gion.”

For five days in Beause­jour, ten­nis play­ers from all over the world will com­pete in the Un­der 12 and Un­der 14 cat­e­gories for a chance to win tro­phies, prizes, and points to ce­ment their place in the ten­nis rank­ing sys­tem.

The tour­na­ment, which was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the pan­dem­ic, re­turns with Sagi­cor as the lead spon­sor as was the case in 2018 and 2019. The tour­na­ment is a COTECC-sanc­tioned event open to the re­gion and the rest of the world.

Leon, who shared that he is a great ad­mir­er of the sport’s in­ter­na­tion­al su­per­stars Ser­e­na Williams and her sis­ter Venus, Roger Fed­er­er, and Rafael Nadal. There is no short­age of GOAT “Great­est of All Time”,  said: “The fact is that the de­vel­op­ment of an ath­lete in any sport, re­quires the in­vest­ment and sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty. In sport, the con­cept of ‘it takes a vil­lage’ is more rel­e­vant than ever, as is the idea of “nev­er giv­ing up”. We should not shirk our re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to our youth ath­letes, no mat­ter what sport it is, as com­mit­ments made now can re­sult in so much suc­cess for all lat­er on.”

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer for Sagi­cor Life, Don­ald Austin, added that Sagi­cor was de­light­ed to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing youth ten­nis.

He said: “We are ex­cit­ed to see the play­ers in Au­gust and we would al­so like to recog­nise the hard work and the ded­i­ca­tion of the coach­es, ref­er­ees and oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tive staff who make this tour­na­ment such a suc­cess. The fact that this tour­na­ment has di­rect im­pact on the de­vel­op­ment of the ath­letes and the sport in St Lu­cia and the re­gion should not be tak­en light­ly.”