Major step forward for tennis in Vanuatu

The Vanuatu Tennis Federation reached a milestone as for the first time 36 tennis line umpires underwent three days of training, from the 29th to 31st August 2017, to prepare for the upcoming Mini Games in December.

The training was conducted by Mr James Willy Quan, who is from Solomon Islands and lives in Australia.

He is an International Tennis Federation silver badge referee with more than 20 years’ experience in tennis officiating. He is also a chair umpire assessor.

This training program is part of the Sport Delivery contract signed between Van2017 and all National Sport Federations that outlined roles and objectives in order to have in place specific plans in line with the Legacy Plan of Van2017.

The participants, aged from 15 to 20 years, were students from Central School, Vila North, Lycee Francais, Port Vila International School and Vanuatu Institute of Technology, and were selected within the Tennis Development Program at the Tennis Club in Port Vila.

“Our expectation is to train our line-umpires and all our other volunteers in accordance with the best international practices,” said Francis Bryard who is the Sport Competition Manager Tennis.

“We want to deliver the best services to our Oceania players. We are targeting having 200 volunteers in tennis for the Mini Games.

“To me, this training is excellent and very professional. It is a perfect opportunity for our young officials to learn more about the rules of tennis and the duties of an official. This is the first line-umpires training ever conducted for tennis in Vanuatu.

“I am very proud because this is an achievement for the federation to benefit from such an international training, recognized by International Tennis Federation. This training is conducted around the world, and Vanuatu Tennis Federation is so fortunate to benefit from it.

“I received very positive feedback from the kids. According to them, the training was very interesting, hard because every single detail counts, also they were very happy because they have learned new things in line umpiring.”

 

Mr Bryard said the Vanuatu Tennis Federation is now in the preparation stage with its Team Tennis for the Games.

“At the moment, our players are under assessment and our final selection will be published in November after the Asian Indoors Games and some other tournament results.”