ONCE again and for the eighth consecutive year, junior tennis players affiliated to the Guyana Lawn Tennis Association (GTA) will get a chance to showcase their talent, in the Nigel’s Supermarket-sponsored Junior Tennis Classic Tournament which served off yesterday at the Non Pariel and Pegasus Hotel Tennis Courts. Inaugurated since 2004, the tournament has been continuously sponsored by Nigel’s Supermarket as an annual feature on the GTA’s calendar of events and will feature nine categories ranging from Under-10 to Under-18, with matches being played on a round-robin format followed by elimination matches.
Prior to the official serving-off of this year’s tournament, secretary of the GTA, Ramesh Seebarran, lauded the continued efforts of the sponsor who has shown tremendous confidence in the association’s administration of the sport.
“The sponsorship of this tournament by Nigel’s Supermarket in the previous years … and their commitment to do so in the future, is great news not only for the sport, but for those young players who will be competing in same.
Tennis is a sport and we at the GTA hope that over the next three days, the players will have a great time in the tournament, enjoying themselves in every way possible, while they rub shoulders with their colleagues who recently returned from the International Tennis Federation Junior tournament which was held in St Vincent and the Grenadines,” said Seebarran.
Seebarran requested the players who competed in the ITF Junior tournament not to be selfish, but to impart some of the knowledge they garnered from the tournament, while national table tennis player and Assistant Accounts Manager of Nigel’s Supermarket, Christopher Franklyn, urged the players to play the game in a disciplined but friendly environment.
According to Franklyn, Nigel’s Supermarket was happy to be associated with the GTA for another year, adding that sponsorship of the tournament will be an annual feature on the calendar of his superiors.
Game format will be best-of-three tie-break (pro sets) for Under-14s and Under-12s and best-of-three tiebreak (full sets) for Under- 18s, with the juniors competing at the recently refurbished Non Pariel courts in Woolford Avenue, while the seniors do battle at the Pegasus courts.
Matches will commence at 09:00hrs and will be played consecutively throughout the day and, as with any GTA tournament, a high standard of competition is anticipated from the competitors.