TENNIS players from the islands will be given more international exposure when they participate in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) sanctioned tournaments and tours to Australia.

The West Pacific and East Pacific Junior Championship have been completed. The North Pacific Junior Championship will be played soon and after the completion of the event, the countries will participate in the Pacific Oceania Junior Championship.

This will be followed by the South Pacific Open Junior Championship and the Oceania Closed Junior Championship.

ITF development officer Pacific Oceania Gary Purcell said the development was going really well at the Regional Tennis Centre (RTC) in Lautoka.

He said the standard of tennis had improved in the last couple of years.

“We have a lot of the players from the RTC who are representing their respective countries in the Nations Cup Pacific,” Purcell said.

“We also have some players who are ready to travel on tours to Australia and then obviously the Pacific Games.

“We have one more regional tournament left which is the North Pacific Junior Championship. Then we will have all the three regional events complete so it will be time for the Pacific Oceania Junior Championship which all our players from the RTC house will be involved in apart from Carol Lee who is over 16 years and is playing on the international circuit now.

“We are now coming into a competition phase and have a number of players going to play in tournaments in New Caledonia in two weeks. They will return and play in two ITF tournaments here before going on to the Pacific Games.

“We also have our younger ones who will be going to the Gold Coast in Brisbane to play in the Australian national team’s competition.

They will also compete in two other high level rankings tournaments there.”