The pairs of Jovan Garibana and Connor Carrington, as well as Em-Miryam Campbell-Smith and Makeda Bain, will represent T&T at the International Tennis Federation (ITF)/Central American and Caribbean (JITIC) Under-14 Tennis Championships in the Dominican Republic from June 23-30.
The tournament is scheduled to take place at the Centro Nacional de Tenis Avenida Boulevard del Faro Parque de Este, Santo Domingo.
Garibana and Carrington progressed from a group of six during the Trials at the weekend at the National Racquet Centre (NRC) in Orange Grove, Tacarigua. The other members in that group are Nirav Dougdeen, Brian Harricharan, Darius Rahaman and newcomer Jacob Jecelon, all of whom were involved in a round-robin play-off.
Garibana played unbeaten for the top spot, beating Rahaman 6-4, 6-4, Harricharan 6-2, 6-4, Carrington 6-1, 6-1, Dougdeen 1-6, 7-6(4), 10-7 and Jecelon 6-2, 6-1.
Campbell-Smith, a top 15 player in the COTECC region as well as the top local U-14 player for well over a year now, also finished the trials without a blemish.
Against a competitive field that featured Bain, her sister Abba Campbell-Smith, Madison Khan, Shiloh Walker and Naomi Mohammed, the daughter of former national player Shenelle Mohammed, Campbell-Smith (Em-Miryam) left no prisoners, as the saying goes.
She destroyed Walker 6-1, 6-2, her sister Abba 6-2, 6-2, Mohammed 6-0, 6-1, Bain 6-4, 6-4 and Khan 6-0, 6-0 to cruise to the top in the round-robin play-off.
Bain’s lone loss came at the hands of Campbell-Smith (Miryam) while Carrington suffered only in his clash with Garibana, for an otherwise clean sheet.
Only two spots each are available for the boys and girls at the JITIC, however, local officials are trying to get more spots, said the tournament director Anthony Jeremiah yesterday.
“There are between six to nine spots available but a number of factors will determine if we can have more players in the tournament or not, one is the amount of countries that want to compete, another is our ranking,” Jeremiah explained.