There was no lack of potential by the T&T players at the just-concluded American Group IV play-off of the Davis Cup tournament which came to an end on Sunday at the National Racquet Centre (NRC) in Orange Grove, Tacarigua.
Coach Dunstan Denoon made this clear yesterday during an interview with Guardian Media Sports, but he said, “I would break it down to conditioning and lack of efficiency in exposure to high-level tennis.”
The T&T team of Joseph Cadogan, Luca Shamsi, Ebolum Nwokolo, Nabeel Mohammed and Akile Duke finished seventh overall, thereby failing to be among the top two teams to advance from the tournament and be promoted to Group III of the Davis Cup.
The T&T team won 3-0 against the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) and then in their last match for seventh and eighth position, they defeated Haiti 2-1, courtesy of a second-singles win from Shamsi 6-3, 6-4 over Louis Walton, as well as 6-2, 6-2 triumph for the T&T pair of Nabeel Mohammed and Duke over the Christopher Bogelin and Junior Bazanne in the doubles.
Otherwise, the T&T team lost their opening two matches in identical fashion 3-0 to Aruba and Cuba; and 2-1 to Nicaragua in Group B of the round-robin playoff.
“I am disappointed but not discouraged if that makes sense because I saw players with opportunity but at the end of the day, sports reveal a lot of things and the results, although you may hope for better, if you’re looking at things objectively, you have to take a hard look at what is and why what happened, happened,” Denoon explained.
“One of the biggest things coming out is that we’re not lacking in potential in T&T where tennis is concerned, but also in terms of sports.
“The issue that we have is the level of preparedness. If you look at the matches, those matches have a lot to do with experience because we had Nwokolo playing, but obviously, from a developmental standpoint, you want to expose your younger players to that level of competition when it’s available.
“In all the other matches we were in we were competing, we just didn’t have the conditioning to see it through. We had three weeks to one month to prepare.
“Somebody may also argue that the players should have been prepared and they didn’t need preparation.”
He noted further: “ One of the other things in the country that you have to look at is providing a platform or an environment that incentivises or keeps people motivated, especially when they are a grown man.”
Denoon will sit with other members of the T&T Tennis Association to assess what went wrong and chart a way of moving to Group III of the Davis Cup.
Honduras and Bermuda completed victories on the final day of the competition to confirm their passage to the next round of the competition.