Carlista Mohammed returns to school in the United States today as the No. 1-ranked player at Southern University, Louisiana.
Although she was on vacation for a month, the three-time national champion trained regularly at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies Tennis Courts with former national B class champ Brent King and former top junior McCollin Fontenelle of St Lucia.
Mohammed will continue her preparations with her ’Southern’ teammates to represent the university in the NCAA Division A Competition during the month of March.
The 19-year-old stated that she has improved considerably since she was last home in May, ’both stroke-wise and mentally.’ And after seeing her in action it was definitely evident that she is playing the best tennis of her career.
During that May visit, Mohammed was crowned national champion for the second year in succession and she expects to be home for the National Championships again this year.
However, school commitments may prevent Mohammed from going after a hat-trick of titles in the Tranquillity Open Tournament. She was only able to play last year because the clay-court event was contested during ’spring break’.
The prestigious two-week tournament serves off during the first weekend in March this year. Although she is expected to very busy with academic work and representing SU in tennis, Mohammed has vowed to find time to represent Trinidad and Tobago in Fed Cup.
Mohammed is in her second year of a four-year program (linguistics) at Southern University but was only cleared to represent the school in the middle of last year after her academic reports arrived late. She made an immediate impact by winning the women’s singles title in the HBCU Championship in Atlanta, in September.
Mohammed, the only non-American player in Southern University’s female tennis team, also reached the last four in doubles but this event was abandoned at the semi-final stage because of rain.