USVI Team Makes Strong Showing At Tennis Tourney

The 2017 Jr. Davis Cup and Jr. Fed Cup were recently completed in San Salvador, El Salvador and once again the territory’s team made a strong showing, according a release the V.I. Tennis Association issued Friday.

The association sent a team of two boys, Alec Kuipers and Russell Armstrong of St. Croix, to represent the USVI in the prestigious tennis tournament, “Junior Davis Cup”, which was held almost two weeks ago.

Mr. Kuipers and Mr. Armstrong are familiar names in the tennis community, having represented the Virgin Islands well in these Jr. events year after year, according to the release. It was their last year of eligibility for the event.

Also for the first time this year, the Virgin Islands sent a team of girls to the Jr. Fed Cup — St. Thomians Natasha and Lisa Messier.

“It has been an exciting process to see a group of girls rise up to be ready to compete on this international level,” said Bill McComb, president of the V.I. Tennis Assoc. Captain for the teams was Colin Robertson from St. Croix.

There were 18 Caribbean and Central American nations represented in the boys division and 15 in the girls division, according to the release.

The teams played a round robin (all-play-all) for the first three days of the tournament. Mr. Kuipers and Mr. Armstrong moved on into the final 8 positions, fighting hard in their first group against Costa Rica and Guyana. Despite losing overall to Costa Rica, Mr. Kuipers pulled off a strong singles win against Costa Rica’s #1 player and both USVI players later had excellent scores against Guyana — winning both singles and doubles handily and earning them a position in the final main draw, according to the release.

They lost to their next opponent El Salvador, won against Barbados and lost to the Dominican Republic, ending up in 6th position overall out of 18 teams.

The girls team is considered a younger team, and will be eligible to compete in next year’s tournament as well.  Lisa Messier played the number one position and her sister, Natasha #2.  Lisa and Natasha compete primarily in the Southern Section of the USTA and Lisa is highly ranked nationally in the U.S. in her age division.

The girls lost to Aruba but posted strong scores. They also lost to Bahamas and El Salvador. They then played for 9-15th place, winning an exciting match against Panama, posting a deciding win in doubles in a tiebreaker, then losing to the strong team from Jamaica, even as they played very bravely — winning the final match in a re-match against Aruba to finish 11th overall, according to the release.

“Once again it was a privilege for me to accompany and coach such a fine group of young adults and their parents should be proud of them as I was. Every one of our players knew how to act and showed the proper respect to opponents, officials and to coaches.  I am grateful for being able to have such a great group to work with,” said Coach Colin.

The tournament is organized by the ITF (International Tennis Federation) and is the pre-qualifying 6 day, round robin event for Central America and the Caribbean.  The USVI team competed against nations including Panama, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Aruba, Barbados, Costa Rica, Curacao, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Grenada, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Bahamas.

The team was sponsored in part by the V.I. Olympic Committee.

Team members were chosen based on their competitive rankings achieved by competing in ITF and USTA sanctioned tournaments, UTR (Universal Tennis Rating) and in some cases a play off/round robin for the final position, according to the release.

The V.I. Tennis Association is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and is administered by volunteers to further the sport of tennis in the territory. It is the recognized sports federation by the V.I. Olympic Committee, the ITF and USTA.  It has a new Facebook page “Virgin Islands Tennis Association” and welcomes those interested in following tennis in the V.I. to “like” the page.

For more information contact Bill McComb, president, VI Tennis Assoc 340-690-0308.