The Bahamas and USA tennis teams both came through Thursday
with wins over Canada and The International team respectively. This
sets up the much anticipated Final match up between these two unbeaten
teams. This
is Friday at The National Tennis Centre starting at 9.30 am.
As both USA and Bahamas are unbeaten this final match will decide the
winner of The Deltec Trophy and the fourth bi-annual Bahamas IC
International Tennis Doubles Week. At the previous event two
years ago The USA won a close match with The Bahamas who had to settle
for second place. Bahamas IC President, Kit Spencer said “
it will be a tough match but we do have a strong team that will be doing it’s very best to go one better than two years ago.”
On Thursday
it looked tough initially for The Bahamas against Canada with John
Antonas and Guillaume Bouffard forced to a tie break in their first set
against Owen Pellow and Fraser Macdonald of Canada. At the
same time Neil Mactaggart and Mas Kimball were still at 5 all against
Rob Bennyworth and Peter Clarke before going on to take that set. The
Bahamas ladies doubles pair of Kim O’Kelley and Sue Kimball also were
being forced in to a tight first set with Pam
Olley and Janice Longhurst. Fortunately all three Bahamian pairs came
through to eventually win their matches and give The Bahamas an
unassailable 3-0 lead going in to the mixed doubles.
Meanwhile the strong USA team came through comfortably against the International team to ensure that their Friday
match up with The Bahamas will decide the winner of The Deltec Trophy
and the fourth Bahamas IC
International Tennis Week. The Deltec Trophy will be presented at the
Final Night Prize Presentation “Bahamian” themed dinner at The Royal
Nassau Sailing Club. The motto of the IC Clubs is “
Hands across the net, friendship across the ocean”. Both the days
matches and this evening event should reflect this where top older
tennis players from around the world renew long time tennis
competitiveness and camaraderie.
The
Bahamian team consists of John Antonas, Kim O”Kelley, Neil Mactaggart,
Mas Kimball, Sue Kimball, Guillaume Bouffard and with Kit Spencer
standing in as a reserve playing in various Doubles categories in
combined
ages of 105+ and 125+.
The
forty IC Clubs around the tennis world are made up primarily of
players who have carried their rackets abroad on international teams,
won National titles or are strong players who have significantly
contributed
to the development of tennis. As well as international events and
competitions for these players they sponsor an IC Junior competition for
teams of two boys and two girls playing together on every continent one
year with the winning teams sponsored to The
Worldwide Finals the next year. The last two worldwide finals have been
at Wimbledon and Monte Carlo. The Bahamas IC will be sponsoring four
Bahamian juniors to The North American event in Mexico next October.
The
IC is also about “giving back to the game we love” and has a
philanthropic arm that helps finance and run projects around the world
for underprivileged kids in poor communities. For more information on
the
IC and all its activities got to www.ictennis.net.