JAMAICA’S Blaise Bicknell is scheduled to play in the 54th staging of the Coffee Bowl Junior Tennis Championships to be held January 15-20 at the Costa Rica Country Club, in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The Coffee Bowl is one of the top junior tennis tournaments on the circuit that is also a Grade One event and will be played on hard court.

It brings together the highest world-ranked 18 and under, and 16 and under players from several countries each year.

Bicknell will continue his preparation under the guidance of coach Mel Spence Jr in Miami, Florida, where he is currently based.

He has had a very successful run at the last two tournaments of the year, the Orange Bowl and the Eddie Herr International Juniors Tennis Championships in the boys 16 and under category played in Miami, Florida last month.

He performed extremely well in reaching the quarter-finals of both events, and was a little unfortunate not to have advanced to both semi-finals.

The 15-year-old Jamaican is currently the highest ranked 16 and under local player on the World Junior Tennis Circuit and was seeded in the top 10 of both tournaments.

Bicknell said it was a very good experience.

“These two tournaments, you always find the best players and highly ranked in the world on the junior circuit competing against each other in the 18 and under, and 16 and under singles, doubles and mixed doubles for boys and girls,” Bicknell said.

Coach Spence Jr told the Jamaica Observer that Bicknell produced fantastic performances in both tournaments. “He did remarkably well to reach the quarter-finals of both championships which are the two highest on the junior circuit.

“He had a good chance to make it to the semi-finals in the Orange Bowl, but he threw it away on set point in the first set at 5-4. He moved forward to produce a high volley shot and missed. That became the turning point in the match that Bicknell eventually lost to the Peruvian Sebastian Rodriquez,” Spence Jr said.

The coach explained that the player had taken a two-week break before resuming training for the Coffee Bowl.

According to Spence Jr, the four prestigious grand slam tournaments for juniors played each year are the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon Open and the US Open Championships.

He said Bicknell needs to be much stronger in his approach in order to perform well and do better next year.

“Bicknell told me that he also expects to train much harder, as his main goal is to move higher on the world juniors ranking circuit this year, and also looking ahead to play in one of the four major junior grand slams in the near future,” said Spence Jr.