True to their pledge to reinvigorate tennis among the junior ranks, new Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association (BLTA) president David Lambert and his executive are reintroducing some old but successful programmes for younger players.

They are bringing back the two-tiered, inter-schools tournament after a one-year lapse, team tennis on weekends and Sunday training for members of the national junior squad.

They are also bolstering their network of qualified coaches in schools and, for the first time, these coaches will be establishing after-school programmes to encourage students to pursue tennis outside of school hours.

In addition, there is a renewed focus on junior competitions with the second one for 2003 - the fifth annual Cromwell Manders Junior Tournament - having served off yesterday.

"We're moving at a fast pace. We're reactivating a lot of programmes and we're anticipating a very busy and exciting season. Things are looking good," said Lambert.

"The BLTA officers have done a lot of brain-storming since we were elected in mid-January and out of all these meetings we determined `Let's look at what worked in the past and let's reintroduce the success stories, get them all back up and running'.

"That's what we're doing and we're pleased with the support we're getting."

Noting the importance of juniors having the opportunity to play tennis as often as possible, he explained that's why the BLTA was addressing the issue on various fronts: schools, clubs, communities and then extra training for the best of the best.

Regarding the latter, the national junior training programme resumes on February 16 at the Tennis Stadium.

"All the top juniors - based on rankings - will be invited to train from 12 (noon) to 2 p.m.," disclosed Lambert who, along with junior development officer Coleridge Place, Debbie Harper and Steve Bean, will coach those selected.

As for the ACE-sponsored Inter-School Tennis Tournament, he said, that doubles competition would take place in two stages on February 28 (primary to Middle School I students) and March 7 (Middle School II to senior students).

"That always brings out strong teams. In the past - on both of those days - we have had a minimum of 43 doubles teams. This gives the executive, the development officers and all the coaches an opportunity to see our juniors compete."

Lambert is also eager to witness the revival of the team tennis on weekends with pros at various clubs organising teams from among the juniors they train at the clubs.

"You'll structure a team of four boys and four girls and they will play singles and doubles matches against other clubs. So, one weekend you will play against one club team and then another club team the following weekend and so on.

"It lasts for about two months and, of course, at the end you have a trophy for the winning team. This helps develop the camaraderie among our young tennis players and gives maybe less talented juniors the opportunity to play with the top juniors because they are on the same team.

"We had team tennis for several years and unfortunately that was one of the programmes that stopped but it's being reactivated," said the tennis chief.

He also noted that a drive was on to get more youngsters to take a long-term interest in the sport. Part of that is the proposed after-school programme which will see coaches assigned to schools coaching students from that particular school outside of school hours.

"These clinics will be held independently by the coaches but sanctioned by the BLTA. The most important job for the BLTA is to give our young players the opportunities to be the best they can be and that's what we're trying to do," said Lambert.

Touching on a few other initiatives for later this year, he said that a squad of about five juniors and a coach would tour the Caribbean in the summer, competing in International Tennis Federation (ITF) junior tournaments. This is to be funded by monies raised from last September's second annual Lori McNeil/Elbow Beach Celebrity Tennis Classic. Plans are already underway for the third charity event from September 17 to 20.

On the senior scene, the Island's Davis Cup and Federation Cup teams will again be heading to overseas tournaments in March and April respectively.