WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Maria Hon­ore was the lone T&T Un­der-18 play­er in win­ner's row up to press time yes­ter­day when ac­tion in the To­ba­go Ju­nior ITF Cham­pi­onship con­tin­ued at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre (NRC) in Tacarigua.

Hon­ore, play­ing against Sanaa He­witt of Bar­ba­dos, stum­bled in the first set 2-6, be­fore re­bound­ed con­vinc­ing­ly in the oth­er two sets 6-1, 6-4. She was among more than a dozen T&T play­ers see­ing ac­tion in the ear­ly match­es of the day, with Aiden Carter and Adam Ramkissoon, two of the coun­try's top ju­niors still to take the courts for ac­tion last evening.

Oth­er­wise, T&T's ju­niors had a tough day with Kryshelle Cud­joe, was the first to suf­fer de­feat, go­ing down to Se­lene Ken­tish of An­tigua 6-4, 6-1 in the Girls Sin­gles, and Is­abel Abra­ham lat­er con­ced­ing to Sari­nah Maduro of Cu­ra­cao 6-1, 6-3. Abi­gail Jones lat­er fell to the USA's Is­abelle Exst­ed in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 while Shau­na Valen­tine was beat­en by an­oth­er US play­er Sifa Butch­er 6-1, 6-1.

Al­so suf­fer­ing de­feats were Al­i­jah Leslie los­ing to Kaipo Mar­shall of Bar­ba­dos 6-2, 6-2: Jay­don Alex­is beat­en by Cordell Williams of An­tigua 6-2, 6-1: Ethan Wong con­ced­ing to Bermu­da's Richard Mal­lo­ry 6-3, 6-3: Alex­is Bruce falling to Har­ris Cald­well 6-1, 6-2; Kelsey Leitch go­ing down to Han­nah Cham­bers (Bar­ba­dos) 6-0, 6-1; Aal­isha Alex­is los­ing to Au­drey Mouta­ma of France 6-4, 7-5 and Vic­to­ria Koy­lass be­ing de­feat­ed by Chloe Weekes of Bar­ba­dos 6-0, 6-4.

Mean­while, there was a lot more hope for T&T in the Un­der-14 cat­e­go­ry where Kyle Ker­ry, the reign­ing Boys Sin­gles cham­pi­on at the LCA/Sagi­cor/COTECC Ju­nior Ten­nis Tour­na­ment, con­tin­ued his dom­i­nance with a con­vinc­ing 6-0, 6-0 win over En­zo Maduro of Cu­ra­cao. Lat­er, Se­bas­t­ian Sylvester pre­vailed in an all-T&T af­fair with Zachari­ah Per­me­ll 6-3, 6-1 while Lu­ca Sham­si tri­umphed over Lance Castagne-Cler­mont of Bar­ba­dos 6-0, 6-2.

There were al­so wins for T&T's Nicholas Ready, Shae Milling­ton, Charles De­vaux, Christo­pher Roberts and Ja­mal Alex­is.

Milling­ton pre­vailed over James Had­den 6-0, 6-0 but De­vaux took three sets to dis­pose of Grena­da's Yousef Ross, first los­ing 3-6 in the open­er. But he made up there­after when he fought hard to win 6-4 in the sec­ond and sealed vic­to­ry 7-5 in the third.

Roberts on the oth­er-hand se­cured a 6-4, 0-6, 6-4 vic­to­ry over An­tigua's Ro­dain Mon­elle and Alex­is hum­bled Xavier Pe­ter-Good­ing of Bar­ba­dos 6-0, 6-4.

There was al­so a vic­to­ry for Jor­dane Dook­ie over Ariel Kel­sick (An­tigua) 7-6(3), 7-6(5) and El­la Car­ring­ton at the ex­pense of Kian­na King (An­tigua) 6-4, 7-6(4).