GTC supports New Age Tennis Club

The Grassroot Tennis Club continued in its quest to develop the sport of tennis in St Vincent and the Grenadines when it supported the launch of the New Age Tennis Club.{{more}}

Located at the Grandview Hotel tennis court, New Age is operated by former assistant coach at the Grassroot Tennis Club, Khir Huggins.

The GTC, last Saturday, handed over racquets, balls and a gamma ball hopper and became the first signage holder to serve off the activity at the new club.

Top junior at the club Akeil De Roche did the handing over, which was witnessed by the director of juniors and maintenance head at GTC, as well as other junior players.

Director of GTC Grant Connell said: “It is a great that we have empowered him to start his own club… He has learned a lot on court from being under the astute guidance of GTC head coach Trevor Sam for the past four years and also ITF Level two coach Deron Grant before he left for Oman.

“Khir also got an understanding of how the club is run, so he can now put this into motion and hopefully he will continue the trend of GTC to unearth the talent and help it to grow, no matter the social or financial background of the child,” Connell advanced.

Acknowledging the perseverance of Huggins, Connell noted, “Although Khir is not as yet a certified coach, he has a good foundation, but it’s the actions on court that matter in developing a player, because I know of coaches with the highest qualifications on paper and to date they are yet to create a champion regionally, much less locally.”

Connell revealed that the Grassroot Tennis Club has given Huggins the assurance that they will embark on bringing in a coach to run a certification programme, preferably from the United States Tennis Association.

“I have lost faith in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and their development officer in the Southern Caribbean John Goede,” Connell declared.

He stated that there appears to be a throw-back from colonialism, thereby taking what is present in the Caribbean and investing little or nothing for the development of the sport.

“Left to them the thought of us one day having a Caribbean Open will remain a dream,” Connell quipped.