January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
Thomas added to Davis Cup squad
A series of injuries and players being unavailable opened the way for 17-year-old Thomas, who graduates from Saltus Grammar School today, to fill the gap.
And Bermuda's top junior, who hopes to head to college in Florida on a tennis scholarship next year, admits it will be toughest challenge of his short career.
"I'd heard about James (Collieson), Jenson (Bascome) and Gavin (Manders) being out so the call-up was kind of expected, I guess I was the go-to-guy.
"In terms of the level of tennis this is definitely the toughest I will have faced. Even though I went to the Island Games, Davis Cup is a bigger tournament and generally people take it more seriously.
"I'm hoping to get a lot of decent matches, come up against a different level of opposition than I've faced before and see what the competition is going to be like over the next few years.
"This is something I have always worked towards since I was a junior. Davis Cup is one of the foremost events in tennis and it was always something I wanted to do. Back then I thought I used to say I was going to play Wimbledon too."
Playing at the top level isn't something he's ruling out completely but he's a little more circumspect now about his chances of playing at Wimbledon.
"At the moment I'm going to go for the college scholarship and see what happens from there," he said.
Bermuda has been grouped with Panama, St Lucia, Barbados, U.S. Virgin Islands and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean Federations in pool 4 of the Davis Cup.
The teams will either all play each other in a round-robin format or be split into two groups, depending on a late decision on the format.
The top two performing teams will be promoted to pool 3 for next year.
Senior pro James Collieson is unavailable to play through injury, while Bascome and Manders have work commitments.
Representing Bermuda, alongside Thomas will be, college player Romar Douglas, who is the only one of the team to have played in last year's Davis Cup, Jevon Whitter, who played two years ago and is based largely in the States, and debutant Tony Thompson, a local Bermuda based player also making his debut at this level.
Thomas added: "We will miss people like James and Jenson because their experience and guidance is good for team spirit but hopefully we can pull through as a young team."[[In-content Ad]]
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