Digicel sponsors teen tennis ace

Rising Bermudian tennis star Tyler Smith has scored a sponsorship deal with  telecommunications firm Digicel.

The company is giving phones to the athlete and her mother, Elison Smith, so they may keep in contact while she is overseas competing and at school — a deal worth just under $5,000. Digicel also donated $2,000 to assist with her education.

Miss Smith, 14, is the top ranked player in the Caribbean Under 14 girls division and was part of Bermuda’s victorious Under 13 Championship team in Trinidad and Tobago last year.

The talented teen first became interested in tennis at the tender age of two and enrolled at the Adams/Flynn Tennis Academy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when she was 10. In the upcoming school year she will study at the prestigious Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida.

She said: “I am very excited to begin my new school. Thank you Digicel for helping to fund my education and for keeping me in touch with my mom while I’m away.”

Miss Smith has won numerous international tournaments, including the Central American and Caribbean Tennis Confederation (COTECC) tournaments in Barbados and Panama. 

She advanced to the Junior International Tennis Invitational Under 14 Tournament final in El Salvador earlier this month and won Bermuda’s ITF Bank of Bermuda Foundation tournament in the summer of 2009 and the Argus Open 2010 Ladies’ Singles earlier this summer.

Digicel has now hung a mural of Miss Smith in their Court Street store.

Wayne Caines, Digicel CEO, said: “It is so important to have someone like Tyler here so I know my daughter, my niece – any young lady – can come and see someone who is just like them and who is doing something positive within the community. 

“I have no doubt that this young lady will make this country a better place.”