Looking beyond the resurfacing

It is better late than never, but the long awaited and much needed resurfacing and some attention to the National Tennis Centre at Villa is welcomed with arms spread wide.

Thankfully, central government saw it fitting to provide the upgrade, although a lot of work is still there to be done.{{more}}

But we should be thankful for small mercies and make the best of what has been done to facelift the centre.

This facility was once the envy of others in the Caribbean; however, through a myriad of circumstances, things were left to deteriorate to the point of near neglect.

What then should be the next move is to ensure that there is no such reoccurrence.

The centre has, over the last nine years, hosted annually one of the legs of the International Tennis Federation’s Caribbean junior circuit.

The tournament is one of the few sporting events on which we can rely with almost certainty, but a certainty which is slowly eroding .

So whilst we rested on our laurels and thought it was a given, the facts are there recorded that the Under-14 did not come our way in 2014, because of the conditions which existed then at the National Tennis Centre.

Fortunately, St Vincent and the Grenadines’ status was restored this year, and the Under-14 segment was back in action.

This column has repeatedly enumerated the economic value which the one-week tournament brings, especially to the short tourism belt along the Villa course, and by extension, St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Tallied, in excess of one hundred persons, included players, coaches, parents and in some cases scouts, come for the duration for the tournament.

Nothing, though, is cast in stone, and others in the region are waiting in the slip cordon in the event that St Vincent and the Grenadines one day does not make the grade.

Neighbour Barbados, for example has had major developments done to its tennis facilities and is one such option.

Then the work is cut out for those stakeholders to ensure that the tournament stays with us for a very long time.

First up, there is a dire need for a strong hard-working executive of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Tennis Association, as the years of disinterest and dormancy have been injurious to the well-being of the sport.

No longer is tennis held as a well administrated association, but a problem plagued sport which is almost at the bottom of the list of acceptance.

With a proper constituted executive in place, systems can then be put in place to gradually move the association and tennis in an upward direction.

Such systems should include a movement towards, first of all, not only keeping the ITF tournament, but upping the status from grade five.

This can be done by endeavouring to get a wider geographic spread of participating countries, thus a better profiling of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Whilst the exact date of the operation is still unknown, what is a factual, is the Argyle International Airport will see completion, which may not only ease air access, but also cost.

Therefore, we have to begin to position ourselves to host other tournaments, such as the Davis Cup.

Beyond tournaments, efforts should not be spared in retrieving the value of the National Tennis Centre, which, over the past three years, has degenerated into a counterfeit facility.

Some persons took it as a thoroughfare, while making their ends from tuition fees, contributed little or nothing to its upkeep.

But it was tantamount to being sacrilegious for the authorities to have sold their souls such that the venue became a place for fetes and Street Football competitions.

For those who made the decision, they would have argued that there were overheads to cover, as little was better than none.

Surely, when through funds from the government of the Republic of China, 15 years ago, signalled the start of a new era in sports here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, no one envisaged such relegation of the use of the facility.

Let us hope such will never happen again, rather a reshaping and growth of the National Tennis Centre and tennis as a whole in St Vincent and the Grenadines.