Over 150 players for PanCaribbean Juniors

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

More than 150 players will compete in the PanCaribbean Bank All Jamaica Junior Tennis Championships, set for July 7-11, at the Eric Bell Tennis Centre.

Yesterday, the sponsors handed over a cheque for $1.5 million to facilitate this year's fourth staging of the competition. The presentation took place at the launch held at the Sagicor Centre in New Kingston. "PanCaribbeanBank is pleased to be associated with this event because we are aware of the positive impact that success in sports has on the self-esteem of our children, which is why sports is one of three target areas of our Sagicor PanCaribbean Foundation and the other two being health and education," Sabrina Cooper, vice-president of relationship banking at PanCaribbean Bank, said.

"At PanCaribbean, we encourage our team members to participate in social projects and sports because as a corporate institution, we have a responsibility to give back to our society and in the process, we assist in creating rounded team members," Cooper added.

Across the island

The competitors will come from schools across the island.

The top juniors on the local circuit such as Sheldon McIntosh, Jordan Harris, Ryan Simms, Daniel Harris, Andrew Bicknell and Roger Lyn are among the boys who are down to compete.

On the girls' side, leading juniors Shantal Blackwood, Sicquena Sinclair, Shellita Haughton, Shadae Findlay Michaelann Denton and Shae-Ann Kameka expected to be on court.

They will compete in the boys' and girls' Under-10, Under-12, Under-14, Under-16 and Under-18 categories.

Douglas Burke, technical director of the Tennis Jamaica, said he is looking forward to an exciting five days of tennis. "We are expecting a very intriguing championship because the majority of our top junior players will compete," said Burke.

He added: "The competition is expected to very keen in all the categories because the juniors have been competing quite regularly over the last 12 months and they are all vying for national ranking points and so I think the standard of the competition will be very high."