The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

When the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association heads to the American Zone III Davis Cup tie next month, there will be a virtually new team representing the country.

While Marvin Rolle will be the new top seeded player, the remaining three spots will be filled by young players who will get the opportunity to play through the final qualifying round at the National Tennis Center this weekend.

Derron Donaldson, the new BLTA president (see story on 2E) and the youngest at age 23, confirmed that they decided to change the process, considering that not all of the top players were available to compete. "Usually we based our team on the trials that we have in December but it's really not a trials, but for a ranking," he said. "But what we have found out is that from December to June, your tennis could go up or it could really drop. So given the big split that we have from December to June, we need to see them play. Plus we had to formulate the trials because Devin (Mullings) was injured in December, Timothy (Neilly) was sick in December. A lot of the big names didn't play in December."

Instead, Donaldson said they basically had a lot of young inexperienced players who participated in the December Invitational with the exception of Rolle who emerged as the top player.

As a result of his performance and having been on the team before, Rolle was given the automatic top spot on the team. The other members will be selected this weekend.

Rodney Carey Jr and Justin Lunn, both of whom played on the team in 2010, will be returning for a spot after missing out last year. They will be joined by Philip Major Jr and Jody Turnquest in the trials.

"They will play a round robin in a best two-out-of-three sets," Donaldson said. "We will add up the scores at the end with scores won and games lost in the case there is a tie and we will take them in order of how they finish."

The trials are scheduled to start 9am today weather permitting.

In the event that it rains today, Donaldson said they will still have Saturday and Sunday to complete the trials.

With a virtually new team, the BLTA has also selected a new captain in Dentry Mortimer, a former player who represented the Bahamas for three years from 1998.

Mortimer, now a coach in the BLTA's junior programme, replaces John Farrington. Donaldson said they decided to go with Mortimer as it's a new team filled with junior players whom he is more familiar with.

"Dentry is best fitted for this team that we expect to send," Donaldson said. "He knows Marvin because they played together before so we know that he will have the respect for him as the captain.

"BJ (Munroe) was also interested but because Dentry is here and he's working with some of these guys, we thought it would be best to send him."

In the future however, Donaldson said that there's no reason why the BLTA will not look at having Farrington return and work along with both Mortimer and Munroe as the Bahamas moves back up the ladder.

This year, there will be no relegation to the Americas Zone IV as they have combined with Group III. That will mean that the Bahamas will have to emerge as one of the two top teams out of the 10 nations playing in two pools to be promoted to Group II next year.

The tie is scheduled to be held June 18-23 at the Shaw Park Tennis Facility in Tobago, Trinidad.

The team is expected to leave on June 15 to get in a few practices before they start playing.