Play­er-coach of the T&T ten­nis team for the Bil­lie Jean King Cup Tour­na­ment An­neliese Rose is pleased with what she has seen with her play­ers and re-em­pha­sized her ex­pec­ta­tions of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ad­vanc­ing out of the group phase.

The tour­na­ment serves off on Mon­day (Au­gust 5) and runs un­til Au­gust 10 at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre (NRC) in Or­ange Grove, Tacarigua

With the draw for the tour­na­ment T&T sched­uled to take place to­mor­row af­ter a cap­tain’s meet­ing, Rose has been go­ing through the paces with her charges. Rose has been joined by the ex­pe­ri­enced Yolande Lea­cock, who has played at the Bil­lie Jean King Cup about four times be­fore, along­side the trio of Jor­dane Dook­ie, Aal­isha Alex­is and Char­lotte Ready, all of whom will be play­ing for the first time at the tour­na­ment.

Apart from T&T, the host na­tion, eight oth­er coun­tries are here to com­pete for ho­n­ours, name­ly An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, El Sal­vador, Ja­maica and St Lu­cia. T&T will on­ly know who they are grouped with at the draw.

“The draw will be a big part of it for us, but right now, we will have to wait. We will def­i­nite­ly go with a pos­i­tive out­look. Our play­ers are young, and for some of them, it will be their first time, so we will be tak­ing it one match at a time. We are go­ing to do our best,” Rose ex­plained yes­ter­day, mere min­utes af­ter a train­ing ses­sion at the NRC, which will be the play­ing venue.

The last time T&T played at the Bil­lie Jean King Cup was back in 2019 with Lea­cock wear­ing the red, white and black along­side Bre­an­na Stampfli, Anya King, the daugh­ter of Mignon King, the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, Rose and Carlista Mo­hammed.

King said that based on the fact that Ready, Alex­is and Dook­ie will be mak­ing their de­but at the tour­na­ment, it will leave the pair of Lea­cock and Rose to shoul­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the team ad­vanc­ing.

“Dook­ie has been one of the high­est-ranked play­ers lo­cal­ly that we’ve had for a very long time, so we will see how she does at the tour­na­ment. But for me, the draw which will take place on Sun­day af­ter lunch, will be cru­cial in de­ter­min­ing how the team will do,” King said.