By Tamika Garnett
Three of Guyana’s top junior lawn tennis players, Krystal Sukra, Aruna Ramrattan and Benedict Sukra, will today depart for the Coca Cola International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Tournament to be held in Barbados from August 9-14.
The three will begin their participation by vying in the qualifying preliminaries that are scheduled to begin tomorrow. Krystal and Ramrattan will compete in the girl’s singles and team up with each other for the doubles, while Benedict apart from contending in the singles is expected to team up with a player from another country to compete in the doubles.
The trio’s participation will mark the first of a circuit of three regional ITF tournaments that the national junior players will be attending.
Following their participation at this tournament, the trio will move on to the St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) for the ITF Junior Tennis Championships set to take place from August 16-21. They will be joined there by six other national junior players who are also expected to take part in the event.
Scheduled to attend the event will be Guyana’s number one seed Shawna Gentle and Nicola Ramdyhan. Gentle will be debuting in the 18’s category on the international scene, while Ramdyhan will tackle her fourth ITF tournament in the 14-and-under category.
In the boys division Sukra will be joined by Guyana’s number one seed Gavin Lewis, Daniel Lopes, Khalis Gobin and Judah Stephaney.
Following the latter tournament, Ramdyhan and Lopes will be joined by Aretta Dey to participate in a 13- and-under developmental tournament to be held in Curacao from August 23-28.
Coach Shelly Daly-Ramdyhan, during an interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday explained that these tournaments are vital to the development of the junior players, as they have somewhat peaked where the level of competition in Guyana is concerned.
With the limited number of junior players, competitions are somewhat redundant and Ramdyhan stated that the players have gotten to the point where they are immune to each other.
“They are the best and they know each other too well, they are immune to each other so they need to get more competition,” Ramdyhan stated.
“These International tournaments do well for them. They get the opportunity to play with people they don’t know on a level that is very much higher than what they come up against in Guyana. The other players display techniques that they are not used to and they have to adapt to these situations,” Ramdyhan added. Ramdyhan noted that whenever the players return from the overseas tournaments the improvements in their techniques are always evident. “The reason we keep taking them is because when they come back you can see that they have developed, you can see it. Being there opens up their confidence and builds their motivation to want to play more. And the better your confidence is, the more the level of your skills will develop,” Ramdyhan said. The coach explained that to gain higher levels of competition the juniors would often compete against the seniors, to help develop their capabilities. Prior to their departure the players went through an intense three-week training camp. Ramdyhan expressed confidence in the capabilities of Krystal and Ramrattan and she pointed out that while Benedict has room for improvement she believes his perseverance will see him through.
Krystal disclosed that this time around for these next two tournaments she will be setting the bar high for herself and will be striving to bring out her best, and at the end of the day win or lose she would still see her experience as an award in itself.
“I have high expectations for this one. I’m confident but not too over confident. I’m looking to gain more experience, and these tournaments give me the opportunity to get more game situations so no matter what I’ll still gain something at the end of the tournament,” Krystal said.
In St Vincent, Ramdyhan said much is resting on the capabilities of Gentle, who being Guyana’s number one female junior player, is the exceptional player of the girls team. The 16-year-old, who started playing tennis at age 11, will debut her performance in the girls 18’s category for an ITF tournament.
Gentle however is no novice to the international scene and has pledged to perform to the best of her abilities.
“This is my first time competing in the 18’s category and I’m going to do my best. I’ve been training real hard thanks to my coaches and I’m looking forward to this,” Gentle said.
However, Ramrattan and Krystal will have the edge over Gentle where exposure is concerned as the two have had more recent exposure against international competition.
In the boys division Lewis with the most overseas exposure of the overall contingent, is expected to lead the pack. Described as being very strong and very aggressive, Lewis has a lot of experience under his belt having attended several overseas tournaments and he has already accumulated ITF points.
Should the Sukra siblings and Ramrattan qualify for the main draw at the Coca Cola tourney, they will automatically qualify for the main draw of the SVG tourney.
