For a while now, tennis, once a darling of Botswana sport, seemed to be on the decline. Since the elapse of the era of the likes of Tapiwa Marobela, now Masunga, no recognisable tennis stars and starlets seemed on the rise.
A fortnight ago, at the 44th Botswana Sport Awards, tennis made a statement of return. In a glittering night to honour the country’s best sporting talent, tennis served Batswana a salivating glimpse of what the future holds for the country.
Botswana Tennis Association (BTA) swept almost all the junior sportspersons awards enroute to winning five awards on the night. Thirteen year-old Malak Macheng won the Junior Sportswoman of the year and Public Athlete of the Year awards. The latter award was voted for by the public.
At the same awards, another emerging tennis ace, 16-year-old Ntumgamili Raguin, walked away with the Junior Sportsman of the Year Award. These awards, along with tennis umpire Gaone Poane winning the WASBO Award as well as Umpire of the Year awards, gave just a glimpse into the return of tennis to the high table of Botswana sport.
Ntungamili and Macheng are just two of a number of rising stars in Botswana. Other notable rising stars include Denzel Seetso and Ekua Refilwe Youri, both former junior champions as well as talents such as Mark Nawa, Seabo Saleshando, Chelsea Chakanyuka, Batsomi Marobela, Leungo Monnayoo, Naledi Raguin and Angel Chakanyuka, just to mention a few.
The rise of these stars is a testament to the hard work and dedication of men and women at BTA as well as other stakeholders to rebuild this sport. They are helped in the process by independent tennis academies. Most of these academies are run by former tennis players, among them the likes of Petrus Molefe and Phenyo Matong.
“Some of these players come through our development programs. As BTA, we continue to invest in grassroots development. Some of the programs include the Junior Tennis Initiative, which we are currently seeking to expand to cover at least ten more areas across the country.”
“Our development efforts are also greatly aided by independent tennis academies, which are operated by former players,” BTA vice president technical Nonofo Othusitse explains. Among the players operating academies are former national team players such as Petrus Molefe and Phenyo Matong.
Talent development however also needs a fertile environment to help it bloom. With this in view, the BTA invested in hosting more local and international tournaments. This can be seen with the recent hosting of both ITF and CAT junior tennis tournaments, mainly aimed at giving locals much needed exposure.
“As BTA, we have long believed that our players are capable of competing with others at international level. However, they did not have enough exposure to competition. So, five years ago, we decided to host more local and international events to push them,” Othusitse says.
To solve this problem, BTA then decided to empower its own affiliates in different areas through the country to organise and host tournaments. These tournaments, which complement BTA organised local events, helped to move players from ‘just training’ to competition.
“We however understood that local competitions alone were not enough. Our athletes needed international exposure. However, taking our athletes is expensive and would limit the number of athletes who would benefit. As such, we took a deliberate decision that we would host at least five or six international junior tournaments here in Botswana.”
As expected, the move has paid dividends. Seizing this opportunity, some of the local junior players, using the home ground advantage, managed to get a breakthrough and increased their ranking points. One of these is Macheng, who is now ranked among the top ten in her age category in the continent. Now, there is hope that soon, Botswana may get a player invited to compete at junior slams.
With avenues now opening at junior levels, attention now shifts to the seniors. Despite the talent it has, Botswana is yet to have a player competing in the professional circuit. Othusitse says is mainly due to the limited opportunities available to push them through the rankings.
Without competing in many international ranking tournaments for seniors, local athletes are unable to gather enough points to increase their rankings. As a result, they cannot get invitations to play at the World’s biggest tournaments as only high-ranking players are invited.
To open this bottleneck, BTA intends to replicate what it did with the juniors, to host ranked international senior tournaments. Hosting these tournaments here will allow for the country’s senior tennis players to compete in more international tournaments and gain points, which will improve their rankings.
“Currently, we mainly rely on our players getting invites to play through wild card status. If we host tournaments here, we will be able to field more players as wild cards in addition to those who will be registered to play.”
“Hosting will also help us to bargain for more of our players to get wild card invitations. We can, for example, request South Africa to give us two or more wild card invitations to the tournaments they host in exchange for wild card invitations to tournaments hosted here in Botswana,” the BTA vice president technical explains.
While awaiting to create better opportunities for the senior players, BTA continues to explore avenues to help them grow. This includes supporting them to benefit from any available program, including international and local scholarships. This has seen as many players, including the likes of Youri, Nawa and Marobela, just to mention a few, get scholarships to play college tennis in the United States of America.
“Playing college tennis offers our athletes with good opportunities to progress towards professional tennis. We have seen some of the players who play in the divisions 1 and 2 of college tennis progressing to play in senior opens like the US Open.”
Even this is not enough though as Othusitse says the major problem comes when players complete college. “When they complete at their respective colleges, most of them will be 22 years or younger. Now, if they come back home, there will be no international tournaments for them to play, which hinders their progress towards going professional.”
With this in mind, the BTA is working hard to ensure they open more avenues, including the muted hosting of ranked senior international tournaments. Once they manage to do this, they believe Batswana will dream of seeing their own tennis stars on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) circuits.
