Yolande Leacock has firmly denied refusing to do a fitness test in order to represent Trinidad and Tobago at last month’s Billie Jean Cup in El Salvador. She says she was never available for the world’s premier female team tennis tournament.

When the team was announced for the series in mid-August, the Tennis Association of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) said the absence of T&T’s lone professional player, ranked at #658 in the ITF (International Tennis Federation) rankings at the time, was because she had refused to do a mandatory fitness test. Leacock, 34, was selected automatically.

However, Leacock told the Express yesterday: “There was no agreement between the Tennis Association and I to participate in the event.”

Leacock said she had no conversation with TATT about doing a fitness test. She said at the time that the matter of Billie Jean Cup selection came up, she had not been playing tennis, having taken time out to deal with a family health matter. Asked whether TATT had communicated with her about her availability, Leacock said: “I had no communication with them,” She added however that when players are selected automatically, “they send you a thing, and you let them know if you are available to play or if you are not available to play.” Leacock said the Association had spoken with her mother, “and her position was that we would get back to them. There was no agreement.”

T&T’s top player repeatedly stressed that there had been no direct communication between herself and TATT officials.

“There are no phone records, there is no email of me communicating with them. There is no phone record of me talking with the president (Hayden Mitchell),” she stated.

In Leacock’s absence, a team that included teenagers Jordane Dookie, Charlotte Ready and Jaeda-Lee Daniel-Joseph, along with player/coach Annaleise Rose, represented T&T in the Americas Zone Group III tournament.

The T&T quartet eventually finished seventh after defeating Panama.