Jamaica's top juniors will get an opportunity to sharpen up for tough international competition when the PanCaribbeanBank All Jamaica Junior Tennis Championships serves off at the Eric Bell Tennis Centre on July 1.

The premier local junior event will be contested by players from all across the island, looking for a chance to gain entry to the ITF Jamaica Junior Tournament, which will take place from July 13 to July 18 at the same venue. This year's tournament will feature boys and girls' singles competition in the 10, 12, 14, 16 and Under-18 category.

On the girls' side of the draw top talent squad juniors Shantal Blackwood, Sicquena Sinclair will all be contenders for the girls' Under-18 title, but will have their work cut out as overseas based sisters Simone and Lauren Vranov-Brown will make the trip for the event.

NO CLEAR WINNERS YET

However, last year's closely contested tournament, certainly showed that there were no names already etched on the trophies, as while Simone easily lifted the girls' Under-18 title, Lauren was upset by Sinclair in the girls 16 final.

With the boys' Under-18 defending champion, 16-year-old Brandon Burke, electing not to take part in this year's tournament, that event will be a bit more open to the likes of Donovan Crumbie, Jordan Harris, Daniel Harris and Sheldon McIntosh.

National Tennis Director Douglas Burke, in thanking PanCaribbean for its continued support, stressed that the tournament not only gives juniors the opportunity to play at a high level, but fell in line with Tennis Jamaica's broader objectives of developing the game.

"The tournament provides juniors with the opportunity to play tennis at a high and very competitive level," he said.

Objectives

"At Tennis Jamaica, we have set certain objectives in our development programme ... we are trying to develop a stronger link between the schools tennis competitions and the mainstream junior tournaments, and the tournament provides a great opportunity to students who play school tennis to play a premier junior championship," Burke said.