Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - SportJAMAICA'S FEDERATION Cup tennis team heads off to Antigua today with the sole aim of getting by 14 other countries in the region and advancing out of America Zone Group 3.
"I think our chances are good," team captain Llockett McGregor said during the final training session here at the Liguanea Club yesterday.
"Our chances of advancing are fair but I don't know too much about the other teams. We will find out when we get there," he said.
Jamaica's charge will be led by 21-year-old former All-Jamaica Open champion and Miami University (Ohio) student Kadija Richards, Appalachian State University's Alexandra Chong and Tinesta Rowe and Alexis Panton.
The latter two were part of Jamaica's Under-16 team which recently finished fourth at the World Youth Cup Central American and Caribbean tournament in El Salvador.
The draw for the Federation Cup will be decided tomorrow with three four team groupings and one comprising three. After round-robin play, the top two teams from each section will advance to the quarter-finals. The winning quarter-finalists will move on to Saturday's all-important semi-finals where the winners will automatically advance to Group 2.
Like the Davis Cup regional competition, Sunday is purely for aesthetics as the promoted and demoted teams are already decided and merely pride is at stake.
Chile, demoted from Group 2, look the class of the field but the hardcourts of Antigua could stifle the predominantly clay-court playing country.
The other 13 teams in the competition are hosts Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and US Virgin Islands.
Action starts on Tuesday.
