players are available for future international competitions.

The Island's top players -- and their employers or colleges -- will be notified of probable selection for tournaments, even before locations and exact dates of the events are known.

And Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association will be pushing for earlier commitments from players so that months of team training does not go to waste.

The BLTA's National Select Committee will meet next Tuesday evening with the subject of how to secure availability of the cream of the Island's tennis players, particularly for the Davis Cup and Federation Cup, high on the agenda.

The initiative comes as a reaction to the frustration of last week when the men's team failed to win Davis Cup promotion from American zone Group IV -- arguably because they were unable to field their best team.

First Donald Evans pulled out of the four-man team because of work commitments.

And just two weeks before the trip to Trinidad, James Collieson also declared himself unavailable so he could play in a major US college tournament for the University of North Carolina, where he studies.

Evans' place was taken by top junior Jensen Bascome and Dean Mello agreed to be a last-minute replacement for Collieson.

But fielding two Davis Cup rookies weakened the team and put immense pressure on the top two players, Ricky Mallory and Michael Way, who after playing six draining ties in seven days, both ended the week injured.

At the end of a week in which Bermuda won the first two ties but lost the next four, captain Steve Bean reflected: "If James Collieson had been in the team, I think we would have been going up.'' The team arrived back on the Island yesterday after a marathon journey from the Caribbean, slowed down by a delay due to snow in New York.

BLTA spokesman David Lambert said of next week's meeting: "We will be talking about the importance of having our top players commit as early as possible for the Federation and Davis Cups.

"Right now, we know Davis Cup week will be in early March next year. We don't know which country will host it, but that really doesn't matter at this stage.

We want to let players know by no later than the end of April, so they can commit to Bermuda.

"We will be getting in touch with universities, businesses and any parties who should know of the possibility of certain people needing to be available to represent their country.

"It was unfortunate that James Collieson could not participate this year -- but I have known James for years and I know that was an extremely difficult decision for him.'' Well though Mello and Bascome had performed for the Davis Cup team, Lambert felt promotion to Group III would have been there for the taking with a full-strength line-up.

"It was bitter-sweet to see our players doing so well, but losing 6-4 in the third set, when we knew two of our top players were not available,'' said Lambert.

"We are better than Group IV, but if we are going to come out of Group IV, we must have our top players available.''