Shelby Madeiros is excited about being entrusted with the leadership of the Bermuda Billie Jean King Cup team for the trip to El Salvador.

Madeiros is the player-coach and captain of a young side seeking qualification from the Americas group three, when the action runs from Monday to Saturday. Asia-Leigh Hollis, Nadhira Durham and Alexcie Burrows are the other team members.

“I’m super honoured to be able to have this role and I don't take it for granted,” Madeiros told The Royal Gazette.

“I think the experience that I’ve had with taking away a couple of other teams previously this year will definitely help prepare me to take on this role.

“I also feel the girls that are going, they’ve had experience and they've been there before, so it shouldn’t be anything new to them.

“I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it should be relatively easy enough to be able to successfully fulfil the position no matter what happens. We’re a really tight-knit group, so I think that would really help

“We’re quite optimistic and we just have the best outlook. I think a little goes a long way when it comes to stuff like that, especially for our mental toughness, especially facing these teams.”

Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago are the other countries at the six-day event. The ten teams will be divided into two groups for round-robin matches from Monday to Friday, before play-offs take place on Saturday.

At the end of the pool fixtures, the top two nations in each group face each other, while the bottom three teams compete in positional play-offs.

“If we win against one of the top two teams that win can get us to go to group two,” the 23-year-old said.

“It’s a really tough competition. I definitely think we’re capable but we just have to put our best foot forward in order to be successful in reaching the top stages.

“If we can show up on the day and play better than our opponents, outplay and outsmart them, then I definitely think we stand a chance.

Madeiros was part of the team that last represented the island in the premier international team competition in women’s tennis two years ago in Tacarigua, Trinidad & Tobago.

Before the trip to El Salvador, all the team members featured in the Deloitte Open, where Madeiros was the women’s champion.

“We had a couple of training sessions but the biggest thing for us was we all just played within the Deloitte tournament,” she said.

“We played the singles, doubles and most of us also were able to play the mixed doubles.

“That was really good for getting some match play some before we obviously play matches away. But we’ve also been having our own training sessions leading up to it as well.

Madeiros is excited by the prospect.

“I think the biggest thing is there being people that we haven’t played before,” she said.

“Teams like Suriname have been added as well as Antigua & Barbuda.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a chance to play them. It’s really nice to get that exposure when you’re going away and you want to get new experience playing different people.

“The fact that there’s other countries that are being added to our pool. It’s really exciting because it’s not like we're playing the same girls that we’ve pretty much been playing within our rotations in previous tournaments.”

A number of senior coaches have helped the team prepare for the away assignment over the last few weeks.

“Ricky Mallory has led a couple of sessions,” Madeiros added.

“We also have Evan Heyliger, he’s been helping out a lot. Jensen Bascome as well has been helping us out.”