Lendl Smith and Breana Stampfli won the Men’s and Ladies’ Singles crowns as the curtain came down on the National Open Tennis Championships at the Eddie Taylor Public Courts in St Clair yesterday. In the Men’s final, Smith overcame a left hamstring strain to cop his third Open title with a 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 win over Seve Day. It took the 22-year-old 111 minutes to pull off the victory in his first local appearance in two years. “I was up 3-0 in the first set when my injury started acting up,” he said afterward. “After losing the set, the medic came out during the time out period and wrapped some tape on it.
It began to feel a lot more comfortable and I was able to play my game and dominate the court.” Regarding his future, the Vincennes University graduate said he was still undecided about entering any more local tournaments for the rest of the year. “I entered this really just to see how I was playing,” he added. Meanwhile, Stampfli sped to a 6-1, 6-2 win over Keneel Teesdale in 68 minutes to collect her first Open singles title to go along with the doubles crown she won with Shenelle Mohammed on Saturday.
The 16-year-old had missed last year’s tournament and the year before, was forced to pull out of the rain-delayed final against Carlista Mohammed due to prior commitments. She said the victory was made even more special after her hero Roger Federer beat Andy Murray in the Wimbledon final a few hours earlier. “He’s my idol and I wanted both of us to win on the same day,” she said. Stampfli will leave for Jamaica later this week to take part in the ITF Jamaica Junior Tournament, where she will look to improve on her 554th world junior ranking. In other results, Kendall Cuffy beat Rawle Boyce 6-2, 6-1 in the Veterans’ Singles final while Seve Day and Liam Gomez edged Yohansey Williams and Vaughn Wilson 6-3, 2-6, 10-8 for the Men’s Doubles crown.
-Nicholas Clarke
Source: www.guardian.co.tt