Trinidad and To­ba­go ten­nis stand­out, Jor­dane Dook­ie, will be seek­ing to climb the ITF ju­nior rank­ings when she joins the US col­le­giate cir­cuit next year.

Dook­ie has al­ready lined up a spot at Lewis Uni­ver­si­ty in Romeoville, Illi­nois once she com­pletes her CSEC ex­ams in 2024.

The 16-year-old is cur­rent­ly ranked 968th by the ITF and is ex­pect­ed to move up the rank­ings with the next up­date. Af­ter a suc­cess­ful 2023, Dook­ie is look­ing for­ward to what the new year has to of­fer. She re­cent­ly took a well-de­served hol­i­day break af­ter com­pet­ing in the re­gion, as well as South and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca.

Dook­ie se­cured the triple crown (sin­gles, dou­bles, and mixed dou­bles) at the Tran­quil­li­ty Open Tour­na­ment, along with a run of five straight dou­bles ti­tles in ITF com­pe­ti­tions, four of which came along­side Bar­ba­di­an part­ner Ser­e­na Bryan.

She won hard court ti­tles at J30 events in St Vin­cent, St Lu­cia the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Sports Cen­tre in Tacarigua, and the Bar­ba­dos Cup (J60) com­pe­ti­tion. In sin­gles, she reached the semis of the Car­ni­val Cup (Tacarigua) and tour­na­ments in St Vin­cent and St Lu­cia. She al­so made the fi­nal eight in two oth­er re­gion­al events, in­clud­ing the Sum­mer Bowl (Tacarigua).

Dook­ie ad­mit­ted 2023 was “tir­ing” and as­sessed her sea­son.

“Over­all, there was great suc­cess and plen­ty of learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences as there were chal­lenges in the sin­gles as­pect com­pared to the dou­bles,” she re­vealed. “I learned some­thing dif­fer­ent in every match and con­tin­ue to im­prove my game.”

Off the court, Dook­ie is prepar­ing for CSEC ex­ams. For her, find­ing that bal­ance has been “a lit­tle stress­ful at times”, but she’s had good sup­port from her friends and teach­ers at St Joseph's Con­vent, Port-of-Spain. She re­mains an “A” stu­dent, hav­ing put in ex­tra hours af­ter her ten­nis train­ing and com­pet­ing as reg­u­lar­ly as she does.

Dook­ie is al­ready look­ing ahead to 2024. Apart from join­ing Lewis Uni­ver­si­ty in the sum­mer, she is seek­ing to find bal­ance with her ex­ams and tour­na­ments. She is keep­ing her eye on at least two ITF J100 com­pe­ti­tions in Cos­ta Ri­ca in Jan­u­ary.

She al­so re­vealed that she en­joys play­ing at the Tacarigua fa­cil­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the in­door courts, which means she can prac­tice whether or not it’s rain­ing. She’s not the on­ly one who’s im­pressed by T&T's pre­mier ten­nis fa­cil­i­ty.

“When­ev­er for­eign play­ers vis­it to play [at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Sports Cen­tre] as well, they’re amazed be­cause hon­est­ly, it is one of the best venues I’ve played in…. I would like to see us host­ing more tour­na­ments to show­case T&T and de­vel­op the game of ten­nis even more on our shores.”

She’s al­so “a lit­tle big in foot­ball”, which she played along­side ten­nis un­til it was time to spe­cialise in a sport. Now, Jor­dan is head­ing in­to 2024 with a firm grip on her rac­quet.