BILL Adams has worked with some of the best tennis players in the world, including superstars Venus and Serena Williams and reigning Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka—he has an eye for talent and sees lots of potential right here in Guyana.

He however feels that unearthing the talent is a systematic process, which includes among other things, more competitions (both local and overseas).
The US based Guyanese is an International Tennis Federation (ITF) expert, whose task has been to assist the development of the game in various associations in the region.
Prior to arriving in Guyana on Wednesday, he had four-day stints in St. Vincent and Suriname.

Adams, who is a Professional Tennis Registry (PTR) certified teaching professional and United States Tennis Association (USTA) High Performance Coach, will work with several of the country’s top junior tennis players, from the U12, U14 and U18 divisions today. He is also schedule to have a session with a number of the country’s coaches at the Le Ressouvenir Lawn Tennis Club on the East Coast of Demerara (weather permitting).
The official is hoping to have certain systems streamlined before he leaves for the US tomorrow.

To give tennis a booster, the expert, who is the Director at the Bill Adams International Tennis Academy, feels that more developmental work is needed.
“We need to get more start up programmes into the schools, programmes which will feed in to the higher level, so we can work on development.”

COMPETITIONS
Adams has worked with players from many nations, including Germany, Italy, the US, Venezuela, Jamaica T&T and Guyana. He was also very instrumental in awarding scholarships to Guyanese players, such as Duane Lewis, who became a head coach of the Coppin State University and Nicola Ramdyhan, who is currently overseas fullfilling her scholarship. To this end, he saw a drastic change in the players under his watch and attributed it to a significant factor—competitions. “I’m fully convinced, you get competition—you spark interest.”

“[In Guyana] we need to attend competitions, use the proximity of Suriname. We need to be able to have some of our players here go to Suriname and French Guiana to play competitions, these kids lack competitions….They need to get to a point where they are playing certain amounts of competitions annual.”

Playing competitions take resources and to move tennis to the next level, Adams said that more facilities, more support from the government and land commitment are also needed.
The ITF expert however feels that the foundation is already there. He said that we have enthusiastic coaches and promising players, who, if they put in the work and get the relevant support, can yield positive results.