The finals started at 6:30 on the evening of the 18th of February. The match-up? Tiger Tennis' very own Sirsean Arlain vs Akeem Gustave. Already the fans were divided between the two camps and the excitement was mounting. Sirsean had played his friend, doubles partner and Tiger Tennis partner Ron Blanchard in the semifinals two days before. Sirsean was able to walk away with the victory that day but also left with a pulled chest muscle. Today he stood on Stadium Court ready to do battle but worried that the injury might prove to be too much.
Unfortunately, at this time I was asked to officiate the Mens 40's and Over Final so I was pulled away from stadium court and can therefore only describe the tales of that match that have been recounted to me. The first thing I heard was that Sirsean didn't play nearly as well as many were expecting. Whether it be due to the injury or the fact that he had not had a chance to to adequately train for the tournament is left to be determined.
Over the past few months Sean's focus had been wholly and solely on the development of his School's Tennis Programme based at the Kenneth "Wriggley" King Complex in George V Park, Castries. That, coupled with the Grassroots Tennis Programme for the community kids had taken up every minute of his time between, coaching, meetings with government and sponsors and his own Tiger Tennis Executive. This didn't leave much personal time to get in a knock far less to seriously train.
On this day however, Sean found himself face to face with Akeem Gustave, a high caliber, top class St. Lucian player. Akeem himself admitted that he had trained for this tournament and felt confident. From the onset things did not look to be going in Sean's favour.
Prior to the match, Sean fished through his portable media player seeking that one song that would help him focus. With his headphones on Sean walked onto the court completely oblivious to the chants and words around him. Spectators shouted good luck to no avail as his head stayed down whilst he sat on the players bench and his headphones blasted away in his ears drowning out all the irrelevant concerns.
In about 2 hours, Sirsean walked away with the Heineken Open Championship. It was said that his victory boiled down to greater experience, a more complete and well rounded game (even if his strokes didn't always serve him dutifully) and an unfortunate tightness from his opponents nervous play. The final score was 6-4, 6-4
Sirsean walked off the court proud and happy that it was over. He immediately called for something to ease the pain of his aching chest muscle knowing full well that in less than an hour he was scheduled to play the Mens Double's Finals with Ron against Akeem and his partner Stefan. When asked what his motivation was, Sean answered that he did it for his club, for the pride of Tiger Tennis.
Tiger Tennis pride became ever more evident as Sean and Ron walked onto the court over an hour later each wearing their eZone sponsored Tiger Tennis T-Shirts. Immediately some individuals in the crowd reacted to this by shouting "The Tigers are in the Zone" to the amusement of the other spectators. The Tiger Tennis doubles team looked fit and ready for their match despite Seans earlier ailments.
The Racquet Club's own Stephen Marcelle took the Umpires chair and called for good clean bout between our four fighters. And without too much ceremony it was on. I cannot begin to describe here the level of play that I saw. At moments there were returns, forehand, services and all manner of well placed and high paced shots flying all over the court, sometimes too fast for the spectators to keep up with. I often wondered how the players were able to even get their racquets to the ball far less to produce such remarkable shots. Both teams were on the ball till Team Akeem/Stefan let one of their service games go and Sean/Ron took the first set 7-5.
The second set commenced in full force, neither team holding back and a brilliant display of shot making ensued. Again Akeem/Stefan dropped a game earlier in the set this time and although they threatened to break back, they instead gave up the set 6-4.
It was a proud moment for the Tiger Tennis club as they stood as victors of both the Heineken Open's Mens Singles and Doubles Championship. As the club expands, hopefully next year we will have a female representative in the tournament walking away with the Ladies trophy as well.
Until that day, congratulations to Sirsean Arlain and Ron Blanchard and congratulations to the Tiger Tennis club.
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