Gavin Manders, Bermuda’s top tennis player, and his team-mates have set their sets on a tough battle for promotion at next month’s Davis Cup.

Manders joins David Thomas, Jensen Bascome, Neil Towlson and coach Ricky Mallory in Bermuda’s team, who will head to Panama City, Panama, to compete in group three of the Davis Cup.

Bermuda will face Bahamas, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad andTobago in the Americas Zone group.

In the Fed Cup, Jacklyn Lambert, Cayla Cross, Zaire Simmons, Kirstin Saltus, and coach Terry Smith will travel to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, next week.

The women will be up against teams from Bahamas, Barbados, Costa Rico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay.

“Every time we compete in the Davis Cup we’re looking for promotion,” Manders said.

“We’ve never gained promotion from group three in Bermuda Davis Cup history.”

Manders is feeling extra motivated after losing to his doubles team-mate Thomas in the semi-finals of the Deloitte Open at Pomander Gate this month.

“That’s the first loss I’ve taken for a while in a local tournament, so I’ll take it as a positive to put some fire under me,” said Manders, who will coach the under-14 and under-12 Bermuda teams at the Caribbean Championships this year.

“Everyone’s playing at a pretty high level, and we’re looking forward to getting on the red clay down in Panama,” Manders said.

“We like the heat, we’re ready for battle, and we’re looking forward to going to Panama and doing Bermuda proud.”

Lambert and her women’s team will be competing in the Americas Zone group two of the Fed Cup.

“We have been training consistently for the past year to prepare for this,” said Lambert, who partnered with team-mate Cross to win the women’s doubles at the Deloitte Open.

“This year we have united as a team to encourage and bring each other up so that we are at a higher level, and we will continue to support each other.”

The men’s team will look to improve on a sixth-place finish in their group last year. The top-two countries in each group will earn promotion.

Bermuda, who relied on Manders to help them gain promotion to group three in 2009, have never played at a higher level of competition.

“As a team we’re really looking to do better than we did last year,” he said. “We’re always looking to get a little bit better, but our main goal is to try to get promotion.”

Both teams have been training at Coral Beach and Tennis Club to prepare for their tournaments.