2022 Sagicor SLTA COTECC Junior
Basseterre, St. Kitts, August 11, 2022 (SKNTA) — The action continues at the St. Lucia Tennis Association’s National Tennis Center, in the 2022 Sagicor SLTA COTECC Junior tournament in Beausejour today.
Up to this stage, the Kittitian U12 Brandon Brisbane has played all of his matches, and lost yesterday Tuesday 9 August in both the consolation round to Immanuel Charles (SLU) 2-4 and then again with his Antiguan doubles partner Xavier Williams lost to the Barbadian duo Zane Kirton and Amon Archer 0-4, 1-4.
Young Brisbane was very glad for the experience of playing in his first COTECC (Central America and the Caribbean Confederation of Tennis) regional junior tournament, and admitted that the nervousness from playing for the first time against opponents from all over the Caribbean was hard to overcome.
He is looking forward to his next event, which he hopes will be in December.
St. Kitts strongest U14 player and most experienced campaigner, Dannielson Lybert qualified from the round robin stage into the main draw for his second straight COTECC event. In his previous outing in April at the CO Williams Barbados Junior event, he also made it into the quarter finals. This time he bettered his streak, and easily defeated Kaeri Mukora, 4-2, 4-0
You will note the sets in the main draw are only going to 4, as opposed to the usual 6. This is due to the tournament losing many hours due to the heavy rains that have been showing over St. Lucia every day of the tournament so far. White badge tournament official Trinidadian Chester Dalrymple explained that in order to complete all of the scheduled matches in the 5 day timeframe, it was necessary to shorten all of the formats, since so many playing hours were lost to rain. The U12 matches were reduced to 1 short set to 4, and the U14 matches were reduced to short sets to 4.
Lybert proceeded to the QF, where he met Bahamian player Jackson McTaggert. Jackson had the advantage of power, whereas Lybert had better foot speed. It was a close game in the first set, however McTaggart took the set 4-2. This game was all about power and attacking shots, as the players competed for dominance.
The first set saw each player acing each other with big booming first serves.
The second set saw McTaggart realise he could not match Lybert for foot speed and court coverage, and he kept moving him from side to side, then coming into net when he sensed a defensive shot was coming in order to pounce on a potential slower ball.
In the end McTaggart was able to hold his ground strokes more consistently, and he took the second set 4-0, and hence proceeds to the semi finals.
Lybert still remains in the tournament in doubles, with his Kittitian partner Matthew Owen.
Their first doubles game was versus the duo of Kaeri Mukora (SLU) and Irshan Sharma (India).
This was an easy game for the Kittitian pair, they took the match 4-2, 4-1.
While Matthew Owen missed out on entering the main draw by a narrow margin, he can be comforted that his performance here in St. Lucia was much better than in the April COTECC Barbados tournament. His matches won count improved in the round robin stage, and his overall confidence and ability to manage the nervousness has improved.
He did make his way into the second round of the consolation draw by storming past St. Lucian Christian Evans in the 3pm match on court 3. The Lucian lefty from Vieux Fort is playing in his first COTECC tournament, and explained in south St. Lucia the courts are awaiting repairs, so he has to make the 2 hour drive to Castries to get a good surface to play on.
The match ended 4-1, 4-1, with Owen’s consistency and attacking ground strokes easily forcing Evans into making errors.
Today Wednesday 10 August will see Matthew Owen play vs Navindra Arjune from Guyana in the consolation draw quarterfinals at 9am, and then Owen and Lybert from St. Kitts will play vs the Bahamian brothers Jackson and Patrick McTaggart in the doubles main draw semi finals
Group photo – all teams
Doubles match – Lybert+Owen (St. Kitts) vs Mukora and Sharma (st. lucia)
Brisbane (KN) Williams (ANU), Kirton, Archer (BAR)
Dannielson Lybert (KN), Jackson McTaggart (Bahamas)