BERMUDA'S best tennis player, Andy Bray, is heading to Italy for the Beach Tennis World Championships to take on the sport's elite players.

Partnered with Tony Brannon, the duo will leave this week for Marina di Ravenna in north east, Italy where the championships will be staged this weekend.

"The World Championships should be an experience. It is slightly different in Europe as they use specific beach tennis paddles as opposed to regular rackets that we use here in Bermuda and in the States. It does make the tactics quite different but the court, net and balls are the same. We are all getting better at playing each week and it will be very interesting to see what makes the best pros that much better," said Bray.

Players from all over the world will be competing in the tournament, tentatively including the current world champions Matteo Marighella and Alex Mingozzi from Italy.

"Andy and I will go and play to the best of our ability but those guys over there are the masters of this sport," said Brannon, who helped bring beach tennis to Bermuda. "But overall, we are there to represent Bermuda, promote our upcoming tournament, eat a little pasta and play as best we can."

Media coverage for beach tennis reached its zenith last week when it was featured on America's number one rated morning programme, NBC's "Today Show". According to Brannon, for a sport poised on the brink of breaking into mainstream sports, media exposure of this caliber can only help to give it the push it needs to explode onto the scene.

"The popularity of beach tennis grows all the time. The bigger the media, the better for people to get turned on to the game and you don't get much bigger than NBC's 'Today Show'," he said.

This is all good news leading up to Bermuda's first international tournament set to be held at Horseshoe Beach from September 19-21, 2008.

The Bermuda Beach Tennis Open has already attracted six teams from Italy, one from Aruba and three from the US, including both the women's and men's US national champions. Bermuda's top players, including Gavin Manders, James Collieson and Stuart Smith have all registered to participate and Brannon is hoping for more local players to sign up and has signed up himself along with his playing partner Tim Brewer.

Bray has also committed to play, however, he hasn't teamed up with a partner yet.

"I'll play with anyone that will have me! Everyone has been playing with everyone to get used to the game more than anything else. I guess now we should start to practice properly in pairs," said Bray.

While the Bermudian players are fresh onto the Beach Tennis scene, Bray sees local players fairing well.

"Mark Cordeiro and Tony Brannon who have already been to a US tournament in Miami reckon we will be competitive. Getting the tournament here is great ¿ full stop ¿ and it would be nice to get some Bermuda players on the map as well. The Davis Cup guys have just done well in Honduras so it would be nice to keep that momentum going for Beach Tennis Bermuda," he said.