28 May 2014

Botswana tennis team manager says his charges showed some improvement, despite the poor run in the African Youth Games.

Botswana boys were all knocked out in the first round, while the only one girl, Keamogetse Ketselamang going down in the second round.

In round one, Simito Sibanda lost 4-6, 6-2 and 6-1 to Ernest Habiyambere of Rwanda while Emmanuel Mbechu was beaten by Mohammed Eljamal 6-7, 6-2 and 6-4.

Sylvester Emmanuel of Nigeria beat Innocent Tidimane of Botswana 6-4 and 6-2 and Tshupo Mbizo lost to Mbinya Lassangoye of Gabon 6-0 and 6-3.
In the girls’ category, Rebecca George lost 6-2 and 6-2 to Judith Muraa of Kenya.

Nthabiseng Mogopodi also lost 6-2, 6-2 to her opponent Amelie Boy of Mauritius while Gorata Keobile narrowly lost 6-4, 6-4 to Ahou Kovado of Ivory Coast.

Keamogetse beat Mpho Kotzie of Lesotho 6-4 and 6-4 to reach the second round where she lost 6-0, 6-1 to South African Janet Koch. Team manager, Trevor Modise said Keamogetse could have done well had it not been for the injury on the arm, which made it difficult for her to play.

Her opponent must have known about the injury and exploited that very well, making it difficult for Keamogetse to play.

Modise, however, said he was impressed as many players, although knocked out, showed improvements as they managed to score points.

“Overall, I am impressed by the level of improvement. We started our preparations in September last year and their rankings, up to the beginning of the games had steadily improved,” he said.

He said the players had been involved in various international events where they were exposed to high levels of competition. Modise said he was satisfied with the level of tennis development as they had another player who however could not feature in the African Youth Games as she was younger than the minimum age.

He was further pleased that the duo of Nthabiseng and Innocent had been seeded seven times in the mixed doubles and they reached the quarterfinals after trouncing Namibians, Lisa Moolman and Radjabu Ntamba 4-6, 6-4 and 10-7 in the second round. ends