Bahamian professional tennis player Justin Roberts spent the last two weeks competing on the circuit at the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) M15 Tennis Tournament in Lakewood, California. He advanced out of the first round of the men’s singles main draw, and eventually fell in the second round.
In the first round, Roberts scored a three-set victory over American tennis player Nathan Cox. Roberts won the first set 6-3 before dropping the second set 3-6, then prevailed 7-6 (5) in the tiebreaker.
He advanced to the second round of the main draw to face Great Britain’s Oliver Bonding, and the 29-year-old tennis ace fought valiantly but came up short in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-2.
The previous week, Roberts competed in the men’s singles main draw in Lakewood, California.
He opened competition against French player Lucas Marionneau but lost in straight sets, 7-6 (2) and 6-1.
Roberts admitted that he felt good about the way he competed, but had been dealing with hamstring issues that lingered into June.
“I played alright,” he said. “The first week I lost in the first round, but the guy I played was good. He plays at the University of Texas and ended up making the semifinals. The level was pretty good. I was still getting acclimatized. I had just finished playing about five or six weeks in a row on the green clay in Florida, so it was a bit different in terms of conditions. The second week I won my first round match and then lost to the eventual winner of the tournament, Oliver Bonding, who plays at TCU [Texas Christian University] so, the level of that match was high as well. I felt good about my tennis.
“My body wasn’t 100 percent. I had a little bit of a hamstring thing, which is why I withdrew from the last tournament so now my focus is to take the time to get fully healthy so I could push for the challengers on the 25k at the end of June into July.”
The Bahamian tennis ace has spent the last few months competing nonstop on the professional circuit with a goal of staying active and improving his ITF ranking.
“In tennis, if you don’t play, you don’t go up… it’s been very good,” he said. “I’ve been happy to have tournaments in Florida this year because I train there, so it’s been easier for me to just sort of drive to and from events or stay in housing with friends who live in the cities the tournaments have been in. It’s also nice to get a lot of matches in similar conditions. It paid off this time, especially in Orlando. I played 11 matches in two weeks, which is very good. I got my ranking back to top 1,000 for the first time in a couple of years due to a lot of injuries.”
Roberts is currently ranked at No. 294 in the ITF Singles Rankings and at No. 972 in the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Singles Rankings. His career-high singles rankings are No. 164 in the ITF and No. 753 in the ATP.
The target number for Roberts is 70, in terms of the number of matches he hopes to compete in this season.
“I want to compete as much as I can on the Challenger Tour and get my ranking up,” Roberts said. “I would like to see a career high this year. Other than that, for me, it’s a level thing. I’m playing a lot of matches. We set a goal for this year to play 70 matches. I think I’m in the 30-something range right now. I think I’m on a good pace so we’ll see what results come from that. If I play that many matches, that means some good things are happening.”
Roberts will spend the next few weeks nursing his hamstring injury before returning to competition at the beginning of July.
