Retired Australian international tennis player, Mark Philipppussis, will headline this year’s exhibition match during the staging of the 2nd Annual Antigua and Barbuda Cup being put on by the Antigua and Barbuda Tennis Association (ABTA).
This was revealed by head of the association, Cordell Williams, who said Philippussis will take on Antigua’s number one seed, Jody Maginley.
“This year I recommended that Jody Maginley is our lone professional ranked player and Antigua has never gotten the opportunity to see him play at that high level so it would be nice to have Jody home to take part in the exhibition match which is coming up on the 11th [November] at 4:00 p.m. at the National Tennis Center. The tournament will start on the 10th when we will have qualifiers,” he said.
This year’s tournament is slated to start on November 10 with the exhibition match slated for the day after. Last year German tennis player, Philipp Kohlschreiber, and Canada’s Brendon Schwartz, competed in the exhibition contest.
To date, Williams said, over 80 players from across the world have registered for the tournament as players seek to gather points for the international circuit.
“It’s next to a professional tournament and the level of play is just as high as the exhibition match we will put on, and what happens is that when you are having these tournaments you will get players from Europe, players from Canada, players from Spain, players from England, Germany and India and all these top players will come down because you have a big tournament at the end of the year and you must have a certain number of points to get into those tournaments. So, they look at our tournaments in which they could pick up points,” the president said.
In addition to the tournament, the tennis association will also host a camp for young players that will run concurrently with the matches.
“Most of the foreign coaches that will be here will be there [National Tennis Centre] on the Sunday [November 11] to do a clinic with all of the kids on the island, and not just Cordell kids, so the children from Curtain Bluff, children from Jolly Harbour or wherever and even just from the schools programme, all of the children who hit a tennis ball will be invited at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday for a clinic so they could rub shoulders with the coaches and then at 4:00 p.m. sharp we will have the exhibition match between Jody Maginley and Mark Philipppussis,” Williams said.
Registration for the tournament, which is also opened to national players, is slated to end next week.
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