The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IESHA Shepherd, back home on a break from participating in a tennis academy in the United States, picked up her first win in the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association’s Goombay Splash Bowl.

On day one of the main draw yesterday at the National Tennis Centre, the 17-year-old Shepherd, who is enrolled at the Johan Kriek Tennis Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina where she is being coached by Jim Lavender, pulled off a 6-3, 6-4 win over Giulia Brighi from Italy.

Shepherd, the top Bahamian junior player, was the only Bahamian to survive the first round.

Jacobi Bain, also back home after spending some time playing overseas, dropped a 7-6 (5), 1-6, 6-3 decision to Hunter Levine from the United States, while his long-time local arch-rival Donte Armbrister fell 6-2, 6-3 to another American, Felipe Hidalgo.

“My match was alright. I think I could have played better, but my opponent was playing that much better,” said Armbrister, a 15-year-old 10th grader at Temple Christian. “I just tried to play my best and have fun doing it.”

Also yesterday on the boys’ side, Bahamians Trenton Smith lost 6-0, 6-0 to No.8 seed Sebastian Murillo; O’Neal Mortimer lost 6-2, 7-6 (3) to Colombia’s Fernando Ospina; Kofi Kyle Bowe suffered a 6-0, 6-1 decision to Australi’s Hien Quang Hien Pham.

On the girls’ side, Bahamians Elana Mackey was ousted by No.3 seed Catherine Xu from the USA 6-0, 6-3; Sydni Kerr lost 6-0, 6-0 to No.4 seed Yasemin Ada Boru from Turkey; Hannah-Joy Simms lost 6-1, 6-1 to Kristina Tiraspolsky from Canada; Afrika Smith dropped a 6-3, 6-1 decision to No.8 seed Luciana Kunkel from Australia and Candace Mortier lost 6-0, 6-0 to Valeria Palacino from Colombia.

Among the other winners on day one on the boys’ side was top seed Santiago Hinojosa from Mexico, who won 7-6 (1), 6-1 over Andrea Cugini from Italy and No.3 seed Roger Lyn from the USA won 6-3, 6-2 over Nabeel Majeed Mohammed from Trinidad & Tobago.

The girls’ top seed Laura Lissel Quezada Martinez from the Dominican Republic won 6-0, 6-3 over Nina Mitrofanova from the United States.

The tournament, which got started over the weekend with the qualifying round, is slated to continue 9am today when a few more Bahamians will be in action, including Bradley Fowler, Sydney Clarke, Isabel Donaldson and Sierra Donaldson in singles, while others will participate in the first round doubles competition.

“We are looking forward to some good competition because a lot of the players are using this as a warm up for the big tournaments in Florida, Eddie Herr and the Orange Bowl,” said BLTA president Elwood Donaldson. “So we expect some good competition.

“We also expect our players to get some good exposure. We have one of our better players Iesha Shepherd playing in the tournament and we expect her to go very far. We also have a couple more players that haven’t played yet, so we are hoping for some good things from them.”

Although the NTC experienced some minimal damage during the passing of Hurricane Matthew, Donaldson said they were able to get it back in good shape to host the tournament with players from all around the world and so far it’s going quite well.

In the qualifying round over the weekend, six Bahamians got eliminated.

Shay’tonya Missick and Gabrielle Simms both won their first round matches before losing in the second round.

Missick won 6-4, 4-6, 6-0 over American Zeba Jamal, but lost to Brighi 6-0, 6-0. Simms, on the other hand, won 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 over American Alexandra Luehrman and then lost 6-0, 6-1 to Kristina Tiraspolsky from Mexico.

Abigail Simms lost 6-3, 6-3 to American Molly Heber; Donesha Gibson lost 6-1, 6-0 to Kamilla Nella from Canada; Wayne Russell lost 6-3, 6-1 to John Bernard from the USA and Isaac Roberts fell 6-0, 6-0 to Aljandro Garcia from Venezuela.