Junior tennis star Zarah DeSilva could be up against some of the cream of the women's game when she takes part in her first challenger tournament next month.

DeSilva, 16, the top female tennis player in Bermuda, is a student at Saddlebrook Academy -- the world-renowned tennis centre just outside Tampa, Florida.

So impressed has her coach been with the play of DeSilva and some of her fellow females at the academy that she has been entered in the Bardmoor tournament which takes place in Largo, Florida in the first week of October.

Challenger tournaments are the second level of professional womens' competition and if DeSilva progresses she could find herself on the opposite side of the net to one of the top 50 women in the game and in doing so accumulate some ITF world ranking points.

To get to that stage though she needs to get through both pre-qualifying the main qualifying stage.

Her father Zane DeSilva said: "Her coach called me and said he was going to put all his top girls in the challenger event, which I thought was very nice.

"It's going to be tough. But I spoke to the coach and he said she has a good chance of getting through the pre-qualifying and if things go well and she plays well she can get through the qualifying as well.

"She will have her work cut out because from what I understand she will be up against some of the top 50 players in the world.'' DeSilva has played against high calibre players before when she took part in this year's Federation Cup in El Salvador when she was part of the all-teen Bermuda team which achieved the Island's best ever results in the competition.

"The calibre down there was pretty good and while she only won one match she could have won all of them -- things were tight. So she has played some pretty tough girls,'' DeSilva said. "She has played Orange Bowl a couple of times and plays tournaments just about every weekend.'' DeSilva said his daughter, in the top group at Saddlebrook, was not daunted by the task ahead of her.

"She is looking forward to it and seems to be very positive,'' he said. At the moment, DeSilva's focus is on her homeland where she will be competing in the Argus Open, which began at the Tennis Stadium yesterday.

The youngster is the top seed and her toughest competition is expected to come from second-seeded Donna Bradshaw, who enjoyed domination of local women's tennis in the 80s.

"She hopes to win it. She has won the last two majors and is ranked number one at the moment. She feels fairly confident, I'm sure,'' her father said.

"She is a little rough around the edges because just prior to going back to school she had four weeks off visiting her grandmother in England when she never touched a racket. But she said she is coming back and getting it back together.'' DeSilva has rocketed to the top of the Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association rankings this year, following her first major domestic tournament victory in the Heineken Open in April, which she followed up another triumph in the Colonial Open at Pomander Gate.