Char­lotte Ready and Aal­isha Alex­is both made im­pres­sive win­ning starts in their quest to join World-ranked Yolande Lea­cock, 33, and teenag­er Jor­dane Dook­ie, 17, on the four-mem­ber T&T women's team for the Bil­lie Jean King (BJK) Cup Tour­na­ment at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­ter in Tacarigua, lat­er this year.

This af­ter Ready, 18 swept past Caris­sa Rudolpho 6-1, 6-1 in their match-up, and Alex­is, 19, made light work of Jae­da-Lee Daniel-Joseph 6-0, 6-4 in her clash when the five-play­er round-robin qual­i­fiers from which the top two play­ers will be se­lect­ed served off at Tacarigua, Fri­day (June 28).

Cameron Wong is the oth­er play­er com­pet­ing in the qual­i­fiers and will get her first taste of ac­tion this morn­ing against Rudolpho from 10 am while Re­day faces Alex­is in a high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed match-up.

In the af­ter­noon ses­sion from 4 pm, Daniel-Joseph comes against Wong while Rudolpho faces Alex­is. On Sun­day, Daniel-Joseph plays Ready and Wong meets Alex­is in the 10 am en­coun­ters fol­lowed by Wong ver­sus Ready, and Daniel-Joseph tack­ling Rudolpho in the fi­nal two match­es from 4 pm.

Lea­cock, who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Bil­lie Jean King Cup on four pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions, is cur­rent­ly ranked 1,153 in the world on the Women’s Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion rank­ings and along with Tran­quil­li­ty Open and Na­tion­al Ten­nis Cham­pi­onship women’s sin­gles and dou­bles cham­pi­on Dook­ie will lead T&T’s pro­mo­tion hopes from the 12-na­tion Amer­i­c­as Zone Group III against An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Aru­ba, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, El Sal­vador, Ja­maica, Pana­ma, St Lu­cia, and the US Vir­gin Is­lands from Au­gust 5-11.

The 12 coun­tries will be di­vid­ed in­to three round-robin groups of four teams from which the group win­ners will con­test a round-robin se­ries for the two avail­able pro­mo­tion spots to Group II for 2025.

T&T last com­pet­ed in the Bil­lie Jean King Cup in 2019 and with Lea­cock on the ros­ter, placed fourth in Pe­ru.

Last week in the na­tion­al men’s Davis Cup Tri­als, Louis Kale Dal­la Cos­ta se­cured the third and fi­nal spot on the team for the Amer­i­c­as Zone Group Four Men’s Davis Cup Tour­na­ment when he de­feat­ed Se­bastien Byng in their fi­nal round-robin match

Play­ing in the six-play­er qual­i­fiers host­ed by the T&T Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion both Dal­la Cos­ta and Byng en­tered the fi­nal round of match­es with two wins and two de­feats each, with the win­ner seal­ing the third spot be­hind Kam­ran Mc In­tosh-Ross (5-0), and Al­i­jah Leslie (3-2).

It was Dal­la Cos­ta emerg­ing with the win when the dust was set­tled 6-3, 6-2 to al­so fin­ish with a 3-2 win-loss record

The trio of Mc In­tosh-Ross, Leslie and Dal­la Cos­ta now join au­to­mat­ic se­lec­tion Lu­ca Sham­si and Tim Pasea who topped the na­tion­al Un­der-21 Tri­als ear­li­er this year on the five-man team for the Davis Cup Tour­na­ment which will be held at the same venue in Tacarigua from Ju­ly 22-27.

The Amer­i­c­as Zone Group Four tour­na­ment will al­so fea­ture Aru­ba, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Cu­ba, Nicaragua, Haiti, host T&T, Pana­ma, Hon­duras, US Vir­gin Is­lands, and St Lu­cia.

For the tour­na­ment, there will be two pools of five teams from which the teams fin­ish­ing top of each pool will be pro­mot­ed to Amer­i­c­as Group III in 2025.

Fri­day's re­sults:

Char­lotte Ready bt Caris­sa Rudolpho 6-1, 6-1; Aal­isha Alex­is bt Jae­da-Lee Daniel Joseph 6-0, 6-4.

Re­main­ing sched­ule

Sat­ur­day (June 29):

10 am: Cameron Wong vs Caris­sa Rudolpho; Char­lotte Ready vs Aal­isha Alex­is

4 pm: Jae­da-Lee Daniel Joseph vs Cameron Wong; Caris­sa Rudolpho vs Aal­isha Alex­is

Sun­day (June 30):

10 am: Jae­da-Lee Daniel Joseph vs Char­lotte Ready; Cameron Wong vs Aal­isha Alex­is

4 pm: Cameron Wong vs Char­lotte Ready; Jae­da-Lee Daniel Joseph vs Caris­sa Rudolpho