The Tribune

When the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association’s Annual Giorgio Baldacci Open is held next week, brothers Baker and Spencer Newman are looking to return and put on a show.

The tournament is scheduled to begin on Monday and conclude on Saturday with the top men and women tennis players participating in singles and doubles. The BLTA intends to use the tournament as the trials for the men’s Davis Cup team and the ladies’ Fed Cup team.

Baldacci, a former tennis instructor, past president and national women’s coach, passed away in 2012 at the age of 78. The BLTA has held the year-end tournament ever since in his memory.

The Newman brothers, out of Florida, have been competing in the tournament for the past three years and have been the dominating players, finishing on top of the chart in the men’s division.

Baker Newman, the younger of the two at age 22, is in his final year as a member of Vanderbilt men’s tennis programme.

His older brother, Spencer, is a graduate of the University of Florida. The duo are expected to be here on Sunday just in time to begin play on Monday. “I’m excited about it,” said Baker about coming here. “I haven’t played a tournament in a couple of months. This will be my first one in a while. I was injured for a little bit. So I’m excited to come back and play.”

Although he was injured, Baker Newman is still actively involved with his Vanderbilt team. He still has one more semester before he graduates and switches his attention to playing professional tennis.

But for right now, the focus is coming here and performing at his best.

“I’m just going to take it one match at a time,” Baker stated.

“Everyone has a fair chance of winning. It just depends on who’s on that day, so I have to be ready.”

And even though he’s coming off an injury, Baker said he doesn’t intend to let that affect him.

“I don’t think it will affect me at all,” he projected. “I think it’s going to help.”

Even though the BLTA has not yet released the list of players who are expected to participate, Baker said he’s aware that there are a number of players out there who could make an impact in the tournament.

“I just want to come back and have some fun and compete and play,” he stated. “I haven’t had that chance to do that in a while, so I’m looking forward to it.” While he played on the Davis Cup team two years ago, Baker qualified as the repeat champion, but he was unable to travel with the team this year because of his commitment to school.

Now that he’s just about done with school and he’s getting ready to compete at the pro level, Baker said he’s looking forward to helping out the Davis Cup team next year. “I will be done with school and playing on the tour, so I would be able to help out the team,” he said. “So I’m really excited about that.”

Without Baker, the team of Spencer Newman, Philip Major, Justin Lunn and player/captain Marvin Rolle lost 4-1 to Bolivia in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia in April in the second round of the Americas Group II. It came two months after the Bahamas’ same quartet got blanked 5-0 by Venezuela in the first round on neutral grounds in Miami, Florida in February.

The Bahamas has been relegated to zone III, a position we were in two years ago when Baker and Spencer Newman teamed up with Kevin Major and Marvin Rolle to advance to zone II with their victory. The Bahamas, currently ranked at No. 86 in the world, will be playing out of Group III next year, but no date has been set for the tie.

Based on what he has done in the past, Baker said he’s confident that he can really make a difference on Team Bahamas next year, now that he’s fulfilling his long-time dream of graduating from college. “We have some really good guys out there like my brother, KJ (Kevin Major) and Marvin (Rolle), so I’m looking forward to playing with them again,” he said. “It would be good if we can get a Justin Roberts to play on the team as well. I think he will be able to really help us go even further. So I know I have to come home and perform next week.” Baker wished good luck to all of the players coming in to play in the tournament. He said he’s looking forward to having a lot of fun.