Strong women showing great for tennis

President of the Tennis Association of T&T Jermille Danclair feels that the large female turnout during the recent National Open Tennis Championships is an encouraging sign for the sport in T&T. Over 100 local players flocked to the Eddie Taylor Public Courts in St Clair last week, including 30 Ladies’ Singles entrants, an improvement from the 19 in 2011. Speaking to the Guardian on Tuesday, Danclair expressed satisfaction with both the quantity of players and the quality of tennis. “This is one of the biggest turnouts we’ve had in a long time,” he said. “The majority of our Davis Cup players took part and all of the national juniors were there. On top of that, we had a full Ladies’ draw, which is something we’ve been pushing for. The category has traditionally been very small over the years so it was good to see an improvement. We have been promoting women’s involvement in tennis a lot in recent times and credit should go to the different clubs who ensured that their members entered.”

 

Danclair was also happy to see the tournament return to St Clair after it had to be held at the Trinidad Country Club last year. The move to Maraval was prompted when the Port-of-Spain City Corporation requested the association pay a fee of $7,200 per day for use of the Public Courts. “We were able to negotiate much better rate this year: $9,000 for all the days, when it was originally going to be $20,000 for the week,” he said. “I think they’re really trying to accommodate us now and we’re thankful for that.” The next major event on the association’s calendar will be the National Club Championships in September, likely to be held at the Public Courts as well. “A tournament like this has not been held in T&T for long time and it’s about time we started having these,” he said. “It’s important to build camaraderie between the different clubs and I think it will bring tennis together.” Danclair added that the association’s other goals for the future would include staging fund-raisers as well as developing its new web site (tennistt.info) to attract more public support. “We always have a problem with finances so we’ve set up a fund-raising committee and will be having a barbecue in few weeks time. We will also be trying to have a more extravagant fund-raiser at some point in the future. We’re looking at something very big.”