By Morissa Lindsay
As Barbados’ indigenous sport of road tennis continues on a developmental path, and the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, led by Minister Charles Griffith is seeking to produce a greater number of certified coaches on the island.
During a press launch for the 2023 Harris Paints Electing a Champion Junior Road Tennis Tournament held this morning at Harris Paints in Wildey, Griffith said he is concerned that this was the sport of Barbados and yet there is only one coach based at the National Sports Council which further reinforces the need to have more coaches.
“At this Ministry, I was concerned that this is our sport, it was almost rivaling football in terms of mass skills on the island and we only have one road tennis coach at the National Sports Council. And to buttress that, we in a week’s time would be having a road tennis coaching course that would see 20 persons involved in the sport at the coaches’ level. I think ten of those, subject to correction, are being drawn from the sports programme at the Barbados Community College,” Griffith explained.
Celebrating 50 years, the Harris Paints Road Tennis is scheduled to serve off at 11 am to 5 pm on Saturday, January 14th at the Road Tennis Elite Academy located at the old Flow carpark near the Ivy, St. Michael and conclude with the finals on Saturday, January 21st at Harris Paints in Wildey.
The four competing categories are Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, 16 and Under Girls and 16 to 21 Boys and each competitor will receive a Harris Paints branded T-shirt for participating in the tournament.
Griffith also explained during his remarks that there is a high demand for road tennis coaches and shared that his Ministry is in the process of sending a couple local Barbadian coaches to Cuba as well.
“The reason why we are doing this is in terms of training up coaches, the fact (is) there are several countries that are asking for us to lend assistance in developing road tennis. We have a couple of African nations that have made representation to have coaches come to their country to promote road tennis. We feel it is necessary to ensure that we don’t miss any opportunities in terms of growing the sport in the region or at the international level.
“We have something coming up soon with Cuba where we are sending a couple of our coaches to Cuba to look to promote road tennis in that jurisdiction. At the end of the day, we need to have road tennis practiced all over the country if we are going to develop it because if it is our indigenous sport, it makes no sense that we are exporting a sport that then we cannot at least in the initial phases, dominate,” Griffith said.
He added, “This youth tournament is one of the ways to showcase the talent that is there because this is the next crop of youngsters that will carry the mantle in terms of road tennis. I would like to thank the Barbados Road Tennis Association for their foresight and being proactive in terms of triggering competitions that also spark an interest in the school setting because we also need to get into the schools.”
Griffith noted that his Ministry painted 250 courts across the country and with the assistance of Harris Paints he hopes to see that number increase to 300. The Minister stated that by getting the youths involved in road tennis, it can curb some of the deviant behaviour and reduce crime at the community level.
President of the Barbados Road Tennis Association (BRTA), Frederick Blunt thanked Harris Paints for partnering with the BRTA and stated that these tournaments will provide an opportunity for the young players to earn scholarships. This he shared was made possible through sponsors Second Chance Learning as well as Barbados Cooperative Credit Union who will be giving monetary prizes.
Blunt in his remarks said that so far there are a total of 74 youth players that have entered the competition and registration would have closed at 3 pm today.
The BRTA President pointed out that in the 16 and 21 Boys age group, he was satisfied because 17 of the 31 males that registered are from the Barbados Youth Advance Corps including Barbados number two ranked player Shakeem Nurse.
While the BRTA was hoping to have more participants, there were a number of factors which Blunt said prevented that from happening including the preparation for Common Entrance as well as this being the athletics season and hence one of the busiest terms on the school calendar.
However, Blunt told the media that there are plans in the works for junior road tennis and they want to have a few more competitions before the year concludes.
“It is our plan to have four tournaments per year for juniors and over the last two years we have been having that. The next tournament we are having is the one in Easter because last year the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust partnered with us for that tournament and that got assurance that it will continue again this year. Then we want to move onto the summer and have a tournament and finish off in December sometime with a tournament as well,” Blunt explained.
Besides the opening matches on Saturday, the other games will take place on Sunday, January 15th (preliminaries continue) from 11 am to 5 pm. On Monday, January 16th action moves to Dover for the quarterfinals from 4 pm to 7 pm.
There will be a short break but the competition will resume on Friday, January 20th for the semifinals at Golden Square from 4 pm to 7 pm. The finals will take place on Saturday, January 21st at the home of title sponsors Harris Paints in Wildey from 2 pm to 5 pm.
Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Harris Paints, Luke Ticknor also spoke and said, “Upon hearing Mr. Blunt describe his vision for Road Tennis in Barbados, which is all about attracting more youth to the sport and making it more accessible to all Barbadians, we decided the best way we could help was to ensure more courts were installed.
“I am pleased to announce that Harris Paints will be working with the BRTA to paint 50 road tennis courts across Barbados this year, and we have committed to supplying over 200 gallons of paint towards this effort.”
morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb
