Natl Open Champs to double as Davis/Fed Cup trials

TENNIS players will be set to clash at the National Tennis Center, Orange Grove, Tacarigua in the Bmobile National open Championships, which will start today and end on December 30.

The championships which is being hosted by the Tennis Association of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) will also double as the trials for to enter a team headed for the 108 th Davis Cup and the 57 th Fed Cup which will be held next year.

Thirteen men and six women will compete against each other for a position in the team vying for the 2019 Davis and Fed Cups. Three players and two reserves will be selected for the Davis Cup, while one woman and a reserve will be selected to compete in the Fed Cup. Aidan Carter, 2016 COTECC champ and U 18 Coca-Cola Internatonal Doubles champ will be participating in the Davis cup trials along with Akiel Duke, Vaughn Wilson, Nabeel Mohammed, Keshan Moonasar, Jerome Ward, Richard Chung, Dexter Mahase, Nkrumah Patrick, Adam Ramkissoon, Kobe James, Scott Hackshaw.

The participants for the Fed Cup trials are Anya King, Yin Lee Assang, Abigial Jones, Victoria Koylass and Soizette Simmons.

The format for the Davis Cup trials will be conducted in two stages during the four-day tournament, while the Fed Cup hopefuls would engage in a round robin tournament to decide who represents the country.

The Fed Cup and Davis Cups are premier competitions that pit teams of tennis players from around the world against each other.

In 2018 TT placed fifth in their group competition in the Fed Cup and next year’s team would be staying in group two of the Americas division in the Cup.

TT did not compete in the Davis cup since 2016, and would compete in group three in the Americas division.

The Fed Cup Americas zone competition will be held in April next year at the Centro Nacional de Tenis in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and at the Tennis Club Las Terrazas Miraflores in Lima, Peru.

The venue and time for the Americas group competition of the Davis Cup will be announced early in January.

TATT president Hayden Mitchell said the tournament is an integral part in the development of local players, and part of the drive to give local players more opportunities on a world stage.

“Barbados was once in group one in the Davis Cup, which is the world group, but they were relegated to the second group after a short while,” Mitchell said. “We could do the same and even better, but we just have to put things in place. And we are doing so with the help of the Ministry of Sport and the International Tennis Federation(ITF).”

Michell said that the association is working closely with the ITF to open more opportunities for local players.