Vanuatu Tennis

Vanuatu's Clement Mainguy won the opening rubber 6-4, 6-4 before the Northern Marianas' Colin Sinclair also won his rubber in straight sets.

The doubles pairing of Gillian Osmont of Tahiti and Brett Baudinet of the Cook Islands defeated their foes for a 3-0 win.

It was a partnership with a vast gulf in experience - Osmont was making his Davis Cup debut, Baudinet was playing in his 61st Davis Cup tie.

Pacific Oceania next play the United Arab Emirates, which lost its first match to Saudi Arabia.

Elliot topped Vanuatu’s Marie Liwuslili in the first singles match, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2. The three-setter lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Lorraine Bainimatuku evened the score at 1-1 after she got the better of Heras, 6-4, 7-5, in the second singles match that finished after 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Clement defeated Mark Gibbons of Papua New Guinea in two straight sets (4-0) (4-2).

Tennis and Baseball kicked off their respective competitions ahead of the opening ceremony taking place today at the Oleai Track and Field Sports Complex.

 Tennis kicked off competition with the Teams’ Round Robin event.

VTF development officer, Johnny Kanegai said most of the players were beginners so they had to organize mini courts for participants to compete in, especially classes 1-2 with classes 3 upwards battling on full court.

He added that the tournament outcome was so good with VTF managing to facilitate all matches.

“This year’s competition has been a first for most of the students and it has been getting tougher every year.”

Kanegai said next year’s competition will be tougher with all the participants battling it out on full court.

VTF’s development officer, Johnny Kanegai said the federation is conducting the tournament to gain an update on its latest player rankings in country.

“This tournament saw all players displaying on court their skills and talents which saw all supporters, especially parents excited and surprised at their children’s performances.”

“We have a lot of potential professional tennis players in country and with such tournaments, we hope to see more proving their worth on court and especially, in competitions.”

The agreement allows the VAS Development Officers to visit 10 kindergarten and primary schools around Port Vila.

Vanuatu Tennis will be able to run programmes like the Australian Open Pathway (AOP) and the Pacific Sports Partnership (PSP) in the schools.

Vanuatu Tennis says implementing the programme in primary schools is part of the development of tennis in Vanuatu.

Photo supplied. Caption: Minister for Education, Jean Pierre Nirua exchanges documents with Vanuatu Tennis President, Cyrille Mainguy