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From:TheBahamasWeekly.com Sports
After four highly successful events in The 2018 Winterbotham IC Junior Series the “Play Off Finals” are to take place at The National Tennis Centre this coming Saturday 15th December. Earning places in the “play off finals” are the top four players in each category from the events at Albany Tennis Academy, The National Tennis Centre, Baha Mar Racquet Centre and Freeport YMCA. The Boys 12 & under are: Michael Major, Jackson Mactaggart, Jerald Carroll and Khai Rees. The Girls 12 & under: Sierra Rogers, Saphire Ferguson, Maddison Bowleg and Jalisa Clarke. For the younger 10 & under Boys: Patrick Mactaggart, Patrick Mackey, Miguel Smith and Nevon Bethel. For the Girls: BreAnn Ferguson, Rachel Thomson, Millie Beukes and either Bryanne Colebrook or Giorgia Mills. IC Member and recent Sports Award recipient Mickey Williams will be the referee.
The Winterbotham IC Junior Series is designed to help The Bahamas develop a group of talented young players who can work and compete together as friends to improve all their games. For this a weekend Round Robin Saturday format has been used with subsequent play offs between all opposite numbers in each group on Sunday. This way there is no elimination and all juniors get several matches for maximum experience and enjoyment. Coaches and parents are asked not to get involved during the IC Junior Series matches but to be supportive of all the young players as they gain early tournament experience. This is in the IC spirit of sportsmanship and its motto of “Hands across the net, friendship across the ocean”. Lead organiser Neil Mactaggart Vice President of The International Tennis Club of The Bahamas ( part of 40 such organisations of top players around the world) has been delighted at the way the Winterbotham Series has grown with around 50 juniors at the last event in New Providence. The IC announces that a decision has already been made to repeat the Winterbotham Series in 2019 staring on January 19th at The BLTA National Tennis Centre.
Many of the juniors who played in the 2018 series and are in the “Play Off Finals” recently competed in The major International “Little Mo” Tournament in Florida where they had considerable success. This included Patrick Mactaggart reaching the final of his age group singles. BreAnn Ferguson with her partner from USA won the Girl’s 10’s doubles. Patrick Mactaggart and his partner from Ecuador won the boy’s 10’s doubles. This was with some 450 juniors from many countries in the events so a great performance and good sign for the future of Bahamian tennis. Our Bahamians were helped in this by their local experience in The Winterbotham IC Junior Series that is minimum cost to all juniors that participate. A factor that together with locally based tournaments the IC considers important to develop a larger group of talented young Bahamian players. The winners and runners up in all categories of The Finals Play Offs will receive a grant from the IC to assist in further development of their tennis. Grand Bahamas finalists will also get some assistance with their travel costs to the Play Off finals in New Providence.
IC President Kit Spencer who organises another major international IC event The IC Worldwide Junior Challenge that is held on each continent for 16 & under National Teams has announced that in 2019 the name of tennis legend Rod Laver will be added to this event. This gives further prestige and awareness to this already exciting event. He also announced that The Bahamas will host the North American Regional Challenge in December 2019. Kit said the Winterbotham IC Junior Series is a great development group for this international event as they grow older. Hopefully many will go on to gain Tennis Scholarships to USA Colleges and some to our National Fed Cup and Davis Cup teams. At the last North American International IC Junior Challenge The Bahamas beat Mexico to come second to the USA at the event held in Mexico City. The USA has recently gone on to win the Worldwide Finals in Tokyo at which the winning teams from each continent take part with many of the juniors ranked in the World top 200. The IC organisation is delighted at the way Bahamian Juniors have taken to this specially designed Winterbotham Series for players in the important development groups of under 10’s and 12’s. It thanks Winterbotham Trust Company and its President Ivan Hooper for its sponsorship that makes this possible. Also thanked are all the four venues who have provided their facilities and worked together with The Bahamas IC to make each event popular with the juniors giving then experiences at different tennis sites. For more information on the IC go to www.ictennis.net For more information on Winterbotham Trust Company go to www.winterbotham.com
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