Barbados finished third overall at the 13-and-Under Caribbean Development Tennis Championships held last week at the Shaw Park Courts in Scarborough, Tobago.
The team of Ilana Blackwood, Jaimie Lewis and Gabriel Taylor, coached by Julian Baird, also picked up two second-place finishes.
Suriname was later named the top country among the ten participating nations with 34 points, ahead of Aruba (28) and Grenada, Barbados and St Lucia who tied for third (19).
No. 2 seed Blackwood was second in the girls’ singles, losing 7-6 (4), 6-0 to Suriname’s top seed Anjali Ramhit.
In the semi-finals last Thursday, Ramhit dismissed Lewis 6-0, 6-2, while Blackwood got the better of another Surinamese player, Anouk Ma-Ajong, 6-4, 6-2.
The same four met again in the girls’ doubles finals with the South Americans winning 6-3, 6-1.
Lewis was fourth overall and Taylor 14th in the boy’s section.
At the Wilson/COTECC Junior Circuit Tournament played the previous week in Tobago, Lewis, the sole Barbadian competing in the Under-14 division, won the title by defeating No.1 seed Emma-Rose Trestrail, of Trinidad, 6-2, 6-4 in the final.
Lewis, 13, had previously won the Under-14 tournament held in St Lucia in early August. Blackwood took the crown in St Vincent in mid-August.
Blackwood defeated Chelsea Haslam, of St Vincent, 6-3, 6-4 and then went on to defeat Guyana’s No 1, Nicola Ramdyhan, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1 in the final.
Blackwood again teamed up with Lewis in the doubles to reach the finals, but they were defeated 6-4, 6-7, 7-10 by the Vincentian pair of Haslam and Denee Lyttle.
In other International Tennis Federation (ITF) action in Tobago, Barbadian Matthew Hutchinson and Grenadian Yannik James just missed out on a second doubles title, reaching the Under-18 final for the second successive week.
They lost 6-2, 4-6, [4-10] to the two singles finalists, Malaysian Mohd Assri Merzuki and Canadian William Tutecky.
Other Barbadian juniors participated in the three tournaments, with Marshall, Melena Lopez, Cherise Slocombe, and Ajani King picking up wins and ITF junior ranking points. (PR/SAT)
