WAL­TER AL­IBEY

An­neliese Rose, T&T's most suc­cess­ful play­er at the Fed Cup lev­el in re­cent years, has re­ceived a wild-card en­try in­to the Main Draw of the his­toric In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) Women's Pro­fes­sion­al Tour­na­ment which is set to serve off on Sat­ur­day and con­tin­ue on Sun­day with qual­i­fiers.

Rose, who does not have an in­ter­na­tion­al rank­ing, will join Carlista Mo­hammed, an­oth­er un­ranked play­er, as well as Yolande Lea­cock, the on­ly ranked lo­cal at 1212, in­to the main draw which be­gins on Mon­day at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre (NRC) in Tacarigua.

They will be up against some 80 play­ers from 48 coun­tries, in­clu­sive of Brazil, Croa­t­ia, Switzer­land, Cana­da, Mex­i­co, Ro­ma­nia, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Viet­nam, Chi­nese Taipei, South Africa, Unit­ed States, Great Britain, Guatemala, Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, Tai­wan and Japan, among oth­ers, which will be seek­ing to im­prove their rank­ings and gain sil­ver­ware and cash prizes.

Tai­wan's Hsu Chieh-yu is the high­est-ranked play­er in the field at 402 and will fan­cy her chances as the most ex­pe­ri­enced al­so, hav­ing won four sin­gles and 10 dou­bles ti­tles on the ITF tour in her ca­reer to date.

In 2014, she reached her best sin­gles rank­ing in the world at num­ber #224. But she will, how­ev­er, have her work cut out next week.

Jer­mille Danclar, the tour­na­ment's di­rec­tor said wild-cards are al­so be­ing of­fered to the coun­try's top ju­niors who are on the verge of mak­ing a tran­si­tion to se­niors, such as Em­ma-Rose Tre­strail, her name­sake Em­ma Davis and Anya King, all of whom could be pur­su­ing ca­reers as pro­fes­sion­als lat­er on.

They will re­ceive wild-cards in­to the qual­i­fiers, which puts them among 26 play­ers to bat­tle for a spot among the main draw field of 32.

Bre­ana Stampfli, an­oth­er T&T play­er, as­sured of a main draw place, pulled out re­cent­ly, while Solange Skeene, the top ris­ing play­er in the coun­try, was al­so sched­uled to re­ceive a wild-card in­to the qual­i­fiers, but will miss the tour­na­ment al­to­geth­er af­ter mi­grat­ing with her fam­i­ly to the Unit­ed States re­cent­ly.

Danclar, who is al­so sec­re­tary of Ten­nisTT, the gov­ern­ing body for the sport lo­cal­ly, said his as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so agreed to make pro­vi­sions for lo­cal ju­nior Men's play­ers mak­ing the tran­si­tion to se­niors when it hosts the COTECC-sanc­tioned Na­tions Cup lat­er this year.

This tour­na­ment will be set ten­ta­tive­ly for Au­gust, Danclar said, and will specif­i­cal­ly tar­get young play­ers mov­ing from ju­niors to se­niors as well as play­ers who have re­cent­ly been el­e­vat­ed from ju­niors to se­niors in the COTECC re­gion, the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Sub Re­gion Four area.

Ac­cord­ing to Danclar, his as­so­ci­a­tion is cur­rent­ly in the process of sort­ing out the lo­gis­tics, the struc­ture of the tour­na­ment, as well as fund­ing.