Trinidad and Tobago's George Bovell celebrates his heat win in the men's 100 metres yesterday. He failed to qualify for the semi-finals. - Charles Pitt/Freelance Photographer

BEIJING (CMC):

TRINIDAD AND Tobago's Athens hero George Bovell produced a career-best swim but missed out on a semi-final spot in the men's 100-metre freestyle at the Beijing Olympics yesterday.

Bovell won his heat in a personal best time of 48.83 seconds but the effort did not make the top 16 for a semi-final spot.

English-speaking Caribbean tennis and sailing competitors also tasted defeat on day four of the world' greatest sports show.

Powerful race

Bovell, 25, swam a powerful race from lane eight in heat six and chopped more than a second off his previous best of 49.95 at the National Aquatics Centre. He edged the fast-finishing Venezuelan Albert Subirats (48.97), with China's Zuo Chen (49.08) third.

Australian Eamon Sullivan, the current world number one, was the quickest of the session at 47.80 seconds, leading Sweden's Stefan Nystrand (47.83) and Canada's Brent Hayden (47.84).

Bovell, who became the English-speaking Caribbean's first swimming medallist when he won bronze in the 200m Individual Medley in Athens, needed to be among the 16 fastest times and was the 20th quickest of the series. He swims again tomorrow in the 50m freestyle, in which he has a world ranking of 23rd.

"My 50 freestyle I came in here thinking that was my better event, the 100 free was just an opportunity to get into the meet," Bovell told CMC Sport.

Other Caribbean entries also fell below the qualifying mark in the 100-free, including Aruba's Jan Roodzant, who dominated the second heat of the men's 100m freestyle.

Roodzant won in 51.69 seconds - topping Armenia's Mikayel Koloyan (51.89) - but was considerably off the qualifying range.

Bermuda's Roy-Allan Burch finished fifth in heat two in 52.65 seconds, while Barbadian Terrence Haynes (50.50) was third in heat three and the Cayman Islands' Shaune Fraser (49.56) placed fourth in heat five. Frazer was 36th on results summary list, with Haynes (47th), Roodzant (53rd) and Burch (60th) also far off qualifying marks.

Eliminated

In tennis, Americans Bob and Mike Bryan outplayed Bahamians Mark Knowles and Devin Mullings 6-2, 6-1 in their men's doubles first round match at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre.

The 36-year-old Knowles, in his fifth Olympics, and the 21-year-old Mullings, hardly threatened the five-time Grand Slam champions.

The top-seeded Bryans used only 52 minutes to eliminate the Caribbean pair and Bob Bryan declared after the game that their strategy was to pressure the less experienced Mullings.