Lee Anne Thorn­ton suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed her women’s sin­gles ti­tle at the Sun­shine Snacks Tran­quil­li­ty Ten­nis Open Sat­urday at Vic­to­ria Av­enue, Port-of-Spain, while Kale Dal­la Cos­ta was crowned the new men’s cham­pi­on.

​Dal­la Cos­ta, the 2024 run­ner-up to the vet­er­an Joseph Cado­gan, be­gan his fi­nal-day surge by up­set­ting de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Vaughn Wil­son in the semi­fi­nals. De­spite en­ter­ing as the sixth seed, Dal­la Cos­ta ap­peared un­fazed on court two, edg­ing out the top-ranked Wil­son 7-5 in the first set.

​Wil­son tried to re­cov­er in the fol­low­ing set, on­ly to be met with an im­proved Dal­la Cos­ta, who wrapped up the win 6-2 for his berth in the fi­nal, against Akiel Duke, who, in the oth­er semi­fi­nal con­test, stormed from a set down to beat Josi­ah Hills in three sets.

The con­test set­tled on court three, saw Hills, the win­ner of two ti­tles at the re­cent COTECC (Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean Ten­nis Con­fed­er­a­tion)-sanc­tioned Co­pa Guatemala Ju­nior Ten­nis Tour­na­ment, in the sin­gles and dou­bles, jump out in front with a 6-4 tri­umph. How­ev­er, Duke came back to take the sec­ond and third sets 6-2, 6-3 to seal a place in the ti­tle match, where Dal­la Cos­ta stood be­tween him and the crown.

How­ev­er, To­bag­on­ian Duke, who de­feat­ed Bar­ba­di­an An­drew Thorn­ton in the East Clubs Clas­si­fied Ten­nis tour­na­ment at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua in 2023 and has now re­sort­ed to coach­ing, was swept aside 6-1 in the open­ing set. The vet­er­an play­er then tried to lev­el the score; how­ev­er, Dal­la Cos­ta was at his very best and romped to the ti­tle with an al­most flaw­less 6-2 tri­umph in the sec­ond set.

Mean­while, Thorn­ton’s fi­nal con­test with ris­ing tal­ent Make­da Bain was al­most a copy of the men’s ti­tle match. The old­er and more ex­pe­ri­enced Thorn­ton went be­hind, as Bain, a mem­ber of the na­tion­al team that com­pet­ed at the Ju­nior Bil­lie Jean King Cup Tour­na­ment in Guatemala re­cent­ly, took the lead 6-3. But Thorn­ton used her ex­pe­ri­ence to take the sec­ond and third sets in iden­ti­cal fig­ures, 6-3, and 6-3 to lift the crown for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive time in two years.

Lat­er, in the mixed dou­bles, the pair of Wil­son and Bain bat­tled to a 6-1, 6-7(4), 10-7 tri­umph over the team of Duke and Sav­it­ree Singh in the fi­nal on court one.