The pair of T&T's Zach­ery Byng and Xza­vier Ha­stick of Bar­ba­dos claimed the gold medal in the Un­der-18 boys' dou­bles at the In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion's (ITF) Ju­nior Ten­nis Tour­na­ment in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos on Sat­ur­day.

Byng had a good start to the U-18 boys' sin­gles, storm­ing back from a set down to brush aside Aidan Clarke of Bar­ba­dos in three sets 5-7, 6-4 and 6-2, a re­sult that earned him a spot in­to the sec­ond round of the tour­na­ment.

But he lat­er per­ished as he tried to progress to the quar­ter­fi­nal round, where he went up against Ar­jun Bha­tia of Cana­da. The Cana­di­an wast­ed lit­tle time in dis­pos­ing of the Trinida­di­an 6-2, 6-3 for a berth in­to the quar­ter­fi­nals where he too played his fi­nal match of the tour­na­ment, go­ing down in straight sets 6-3, 6-1 to Brazil's Alves Kmez.

Byng lat­er re­bound­ed in the dou­bles. His com­bi­na­tion with Ha­stick proved to be un­beat­able for a field of over 15 teams. How­ev­er, hav­ing beat­en the Bar­ba­di­an team of Am­mon Archer and Zach King in their open­ing match, the Byng-Ha­stick com­bi­na­tion yes­ter­day de­feat­ed Mar­tin Sal­vador Pages and Ak­i­hi­ro Toy­o­da 7-6(4), 7-6(6) for the right to con­test the ti­tle match yes­ter­day.

Their crown­ing mo­ment came when they de­feat­ed the team of An­tho­ny Dry of the USA and Vic­to­ry Pig­na­tion of Brazil 6-4, 4-6 and 10-8.

Ear­li­er in the girls'U-18 sin­gles T&T's Shiloh Walk­er, the lone T&T fe­male in the tour­na­ment cruised to the sec­ond round of the com­pe­ti­tion on a bye, but she was lat­er stopped by Cana­da's Ava Sanicha­ran in straight sets 6-1, 6-0.

Walk­er al­so tried to make amends in the girls' dou­bles that fol­lowed like her com­pa­tri­ot Byng. Join­ing forces with Maria Jose Sanchez of Colom­bia, Walk­er and com­pa­ny were giv­en the boot, los­ing to Camille Michel and Sanicha­ran 6-4, 7-6(4).