BOTH Trinidad and Tobago Under-16 tennis teams won for the second straight day when the North/Central America and the Caribbean pre-qualifying tournament for the Junior Billie Jean King Cup and Junior Davis Cup concluded Friday in Guatemala.
After losing 2-1 to both El Salvador and Honduras in the round-robin stage, the girls were triumphant in their final three fixtures to place ninth of the 12 teams in the Junior Billie Jean competition.
And the boys won two of their last three fixtures to finish 13th of 16 in the Junior Davis Cup.
Guatemala did not lose a single match from six fixtures, putting the icing on the cake with a 2-0 victory over the Dominican Republic for the title.
And the Puerto Ricans came from behind to defeat Costa Rica 2-1 in the girls’ final.
Both champions will battle the teams from Mexico, the United States and hosts Canada in the qualifying tournament in the middle of next month.
The two top male and female teams from this competition will represent the region in the main draws of the Junior Davis Cup and Junior Billie Jean King Cup in September.
After defeating both Curacao and Aruba 2-1 over the previous two days, T&T’s girls came from behind to take down the Bahamas Friday by the same score for ninth place.
Madison Khan, who won in both singles and doubles against Curacao and Aruba, lost the opener (6-4, 7-6) on this occasion, but still played a major role in the T&T victory.
After Natalia Tkachenko won the battle of No. 1 players 6-2, 6-3 against Briana Houlgrave the American with local roots and last year’s national Under-14 champ cruised home 6-4, 6-1 in the deciding doubles.
Nirav Dougdeen won twice as this country’s boys came from behind to defeat the Bahamas for the second time in the tournament and secure 13th place.
After Connor Carrington was edged 3-5, 4-0, 10/4 in the opening match, last year’s national Under-14 champ crushed Tobias Goodchild 4-0, 4-0 in the battle of No. 1 players, and later combined with Jovan Garibana to win the deciding doubles 5-4 (8/6), 4-2.
When the two teams clashed in the round-robin stage on the opening day the tournament last Sunday, Dougdeen and Garibana won the singles matches, but failed to complete the sweep by losing the doubles.
T&T then went down 2-1 to both Honduras and Panama and did not qualify for the quarter-finals by failing to finish in the top two in Group C.
The trio was then further relegated to the 13th place playoff after losing 2-1 to Suriname, but they then beat the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) and Bermuda by the same score to finish ahead of three teams.
Final placings
Junior Davis Cup –
1. Guatemala; 2. Dominican Republic; 3. El Salvador; 4. Panama; 5. Costa Rica; 6. Puerto Rico; 7. Honduras, 8. Curacao; 9. Barbados; 10. Bahamas; 11. Aruba; 12. Suriname; 13. T&T; 14. Bermuda; 15. Jamaica; 16. USVI.
Junior Billie Jean Cup –
1. Puerto Rico; 2. Costa Rica; 3. Guatemala; 4. Dominican Republic; 5. El Salvador; 6. Honduras; 7. Jamaica; 8. Suriname; 9. T&T: 10. Bahamas; 11. Aruba; 12. Curacao.
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Publish date : 2025-03-02 13:27:00
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