Island-wide road tennis tournament starts June 12

Major earnings are up for grabs when the Barbados Road Tennis Open serves off from June 12 to August 7 at four venues across the country with the overall champions in both men and women slated to take home BDS$20 000 respectively.

During this morning’s official launch held at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex, the Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Barbados Road Tennis Open Shawn Burke gave an overview and said the tournament will be contested at the community level in every constituency starting with a preliminary phase.

One of the major attractions coming out of today’s launch attended by Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith is that the women will pocket the same amount of prize money as the men. The second-place finisher gets BDS$15, 000, third position BDS$10, 000 and fourth BDS$5, 000.

According to Burke, interested persons can register through the Division of Youth Affairs website. Or, they can visit the National Sports Council’s office on specific days to sign up at a fee of ten dollars. The tournament will be played at four venues and they are the Deighton ‘Pa’ Roach facility in Bush Hall, Silver Hill in Christ Church, Gall Hill in St. John and Diamond Corner in St. Peter.

Matches will be played every night except Fridays and Burke thanked the National Sports Council which is the major partner in this initiative for preparing over 200 hardcourts around the island and additionally installing lights as the games will be contested at night.

Reigning national top seed Mark ‘Venom’ Griffith will represent St. Michael North West while the current queen of road tennis in Barbados Sheldene Walrond will carry the hopes of St. James South on her shoulders. Both Walrond and Griffith welcomed the tournament and money being invested especially after not being able to play competitively for the past two years because of COVID-19.

Sheldene Walrond (left) and Mark Griffith (right) sharing a light moment with Minister of Sports Charles Griffith (second left) and director of the National Sport Council Neil Murrell (second right). (Picture by Morissa Lindsay)

To decide the road tennis champions of Barbados, all competitors once successful during the preliminary stages in the men’s, will advance into the knockout round of 64 while the women’s knockout will start at the round of 16 given that there are fewer women than men playing road tennis, Burke noted.

He also explained that it was important to forge partnerships to make such ventures a success and therefore singled out the Barbados Road Tennis Association, the Professional Road Tennis Association and the National Sports Council for being part of the tournament. Burke expressed that these types of partnerships were critical to the development of road tennis.

During his address, Minister of Sports Charles Griffith said that his ministry is working to ensure road tennis travels and becomes a global brand. He revealed they are also looking for a home for road tennis somewhere within the Garfield Sobers Complex as well as ensuring the sport is efficiently governed with the implementation of the line technology.

“The home for road tennis will be at the Wildey Complex to house 1500 spectators. The ministry is actively looking at line technology to ensure that the line technology becomes a staple as it relates to road tennis. I have played the game at some point in time and I know there are a lot of arguments that can ensue because of calls.

“Part of my ministry is community empowerment and I believe that road tennis if we structure it in a way that would capture the imagination of the communities, we can use it to build communities across this country. Sports is one of those areas when you get involved it is something that can garner that type of support and we would have seen it in different sports across the country; basketball, football, where communities come together to support those teams that have (come) from within their communities,” Griffith told those in attendance.

He added: “It is my hope that we can use it well in the same vein to build that community spirit throughout this country.”

The minister also encouraged the Barbados Road Tennis Association and the Professional Road Tennis Association, the two entities that play a major role in the development of the sport locally, that they should work as a united front to ensure it is kept alive.

“One of the things I would like to suggest to the two entities that are responsible on island for this particular sport, is that you work as a cohesive unit to ensure that the sport will not fall flat. Yes, the onus is on the government to provide the impetus for all the national federations to ensure that we grow our sport, but this one is ours personally and the trajectory that we are looking at in terms of where we want to carry road tennis can only happen if we work in harmony and if we fuse together our ideas and thoughts in terms of promoting this at the national level and throughout the region,” Griffith explained.

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb