Veteran tennis queen Anneliese Rose believes her dream of seeing a player from the Caribbean being among the top players in Europe and the United States, will come soon. And she can well play a big part in achieving this future goal.
She told Guardian Media Sports on Monday that she will love to help the T&T Tennis Association and the players to move forward, as there is so much potential.
"I have spoken to the secretary Jermille Danclar and president Hayden Mitchell. I told them that when I got my last award, I may be interested in coming back and we spoke about some of the things they would like to do, but, with what has happened with the sport being affected by COVID-19 like all other sports, it is kind of hard to move forward on the plans. I would love to help the Association and tennis in Trinidad and Tobago go further. I want us to excel, that is what still drives me to play and represent my country," Rose said.
"I see so much potential locally, but we have a lot of loopholes that we need to plug."
Rose, who is undoubtedly one of this country's most decorated women's player, was honoured by the world governing body for the sport-ITF in March, for her contribution and dedication to the sport, having represented the country at the ITF Junior tour, the ITF Pro tour and Fed Cup and achieved a career-high ITF Junior rank of 159 in the singles and 161 in the doubles together, with multiple National Junior Championships.
She believes the country has fallen short in the areas of exposure and funds, saying: "Exposure is having the funds to send our juniors or pros like Breana Stampfli, to go overseas and play tennis. This is the problem, we cannot expect results when we're competing with players worldwide, like Fed Cup.
"Locally, there is just not enough competition and therefore we need to have our juniors to go overseas, to the United State. I know it's hard and I can't say where we are fund-wise in T&T with tennis, but I think it would take someone to make it, to get the funds that we need in T&T."
She commended the administrators of the sport locally for the strides made, saying she longs to have someone from the Caribbean who can be respected like players from Europe and the US.
"We can do it. We just have to put all the pieces together, but the last few years has been a big start. For example the facility. For years we haven't had a good facility to host tournaments but now we do. So we can only move forward."
Rose also pointed to this country's hosting of the historic $15,000 and $25,000 ITF tournaments which she believes is a huge start towards achieving her goal.
This year, Rose said she intends to play tournaments.
"Most important, we have to wait and see what the ITF is going to be doing, there is still uncertainty about tournaments but I would like to play some tournaments. We were supposed to have two tournaments in May but that was cancelled, so until then I have been training and trying to keep my form and stay fit but definitely, the goal is to play tournaments."