An important part of the 2011 KPMG Legends Tennis tournament was ensuring Cayman’s best juniors, amateurs and pros got a chance to play alongside and against some of the world’s greatest players from recent years.

Well that certainly happened on the first day, Thursday, when hundreds of local school children got a chance to see two locals take on former champs Chanda Rubin and Jimmy Arias. Cayman tennis coach Adam Bayley and local enthusiast Richard Harrison pitted themselves against the pros but lost pretty quickly 8-3 in what amounted to an exhibition match. All profits from the event will go to Cayman junior tennis and the Cayman Crisis Centre.

Nick Bollettieri, the brilliant coach behind tennis greats Andre Agassi, Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova as well as many others, gave the kids a great pep talk on before the action began.

The doubles competition was inevitably won by Mark Philippoussis and Martina Hingis who beat Chanda Rubin and Murphy Jensen 8-5 and the singles title went to Wayne Ferreira who defeated Thomas Blak 8-7 after a tie-breaker.