Some of the Island’s most promising tennis players will showcase their budding skills at this weekend’s Beat the Heat Tennis Tournament in Orlando, Florida.Temple of Tennis, who are based at Port Royal Golf Course, have sent a 14-member team to the United States Tennis Association sanctioned event to take place at the Lake Cane Tennis Centre today and tomorrow.This year marks the first time that the local registered charity has participated in the Level Seven tournament for players aged 11 and under.Temple of Tennis secretary Sarah Fellows said the main objective of sending a team to Florida was to enable the players to broaden their horizons in many aspects.“The primary aim is youth development, international exposure, tournament exposure and continuing to knit the family which is growing very quickly at the Temple of Tennis who are all supporting the youth with these types of programmes,” she added. “The Temple of Tennis’ aim is to promote the sport from the grassroots level all the way up to professional level.”Fellows said the youth tennis players, ranging in ages between seven and 14, have put in a lot of hard work in the lead-up to the tournament.“The Temple of Tennis professionals Ricky Mallory, Jensen Bascome, Steve Bean and Sammy Maybury have been training the children three sessions per week for the last few months to get them up,” she added. “Some of the players have played in tournaments before and done very well both on the Island and internationally and for some it’s their first tournament.”In order to make the trip to Florida possible the young players and their parents combined their efforts to help raise funds.“The parents along with the children have put on pot luck dinners, bake sales and tennis events and they basically raised the funds in order to go by way of the charity,” Fellows said. “It’s a happy and dedicated team and a team that’s also realising that it takes work in order to get these types of opportunities and that’s been a beautiful thing to watch.“Nothing in life is for free, so they’ve really rallied around and done everything they could in order to make the trip possible.”The Temple of Tennis falls under the auspices of Port Royal Tennis Club whose president is former top player Ricky Mallory.Mallory is accompanying the team along with Temple of Tennis vice-president/treasurer Michael Wolfe and tennis director/pro Maybury.