Local road tennis players chomping at Nine Mornings pay-out

A cash prize of US $1,000 awaits the top male and top female, when a road tennis competition is staged here during this year’s Nine Morning festivities.{{more}}

To be called, “The SVG Road Tennis Blast”, the competition is being promoted by the Professional Road Tennis Association of Barbados, in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Culture.

President of the Professional Road Tennis Association (PRTA), which is based in Barbados, Dale Clarke visited St Vincent and the Grenadines last weekend to hold discussions with local sports authorities to firm up the event.

Clarke revealed that there will be four preliminary phases which should take place islandwide, with the two top players from each advancing to the quarter-finals.

The elimination phase is set for the National Lotteries Authority courts at Murray’s Road, formerly called the Triangle.

Apart from the seniors, there will be a junior category; however, lined up for them are devices, such as tablets.

Clarke said that making St Vincent and the Grenadines the first stop was planned with some intimacy, as his father is Vincentian.

“Being that my father is Vincy, I think this would have been the ideal place to bring our first regional tournament out of Barbados and extend the circuit here,” Clarke reasoned.

Clarke is hoping that the Nine Mornings Blast will be sustained and plans, through his organization and with the respective ministries here, to put on a schools’ competition in 2017.

“We have to be realistic, even though we are sending thousands of people to UWI (the University of the West Indies), there are limited jobs in the Caribbean,” Clarke reasoned.

“I feel in the region, we do not focus on the opportunities in sports as much…. Everywhere in the world, sports is a billion dollar industry… People make a living from sports and I believe that road tennis is going to be that sport in the Caribbean.

“…In order to gain respect, you have to be a lawyer; you have to be a doctor,” he added.

Clarke noted that today in the region, some of the wealthiest persons are sportsmen and entertainers.

Clarke said that at present, road tennis is going through a revival of sorts in his homeland of Barbados, with the injection of money and other lucrative prizes.

He pointed to the fact that the male champion of the Barbados Workers Union Limited competition held last month received a brand new car, valued at BDS$60,000, while the female winner collected $15,000.

Earlier this month, Barbados hosted the World Road Tennis Championships, in which prize monies totalled BDS$20,000.

And, Vincentians also took a dip out of the pool, with Sean Stanley taking the overseas male title and the $2,500 cash prize, while Samantha Lynch was the runner-up in the females. Lynch collected $1,000.

Stanley, Lynch and Ted Roberts Jr, were SVG’s representatives to the championships.

Stanley had won the male, Lynch, the female and Roberts, the Under-18 title of the local circuit, which gave them to right to represent St Vincent and the Grenadines.(RT)