30 May 2018

Francistown’s Donga Tennis Club has secured a P70 000 sponsorship for 2018 from JB Sports, the club’s Mr Lashani Madubeko has disclosed.

Mr Madubeko, who was the tournament director for this past weekend’s Donga Junior Tennis Open, said the sportswear company had promised to renew the sponsorship next year.

He said the two-day tournament organised by the club went well despite getting sponsorship at the last minute.

Mr Madubeko said preparations for the event went well and attributed such to the support received from players’ parents who always ensured all logistics were covered before sending their children off to participate in tournaments.

“Nonetheless, we were really grateful to JB Sports for coming on board to support us with a P70 000 sponsorship for the whole year so that we can buy medals, trophies, print competition certificates and buy more tennis balls for our upcoming events,” he said.

Held at the Francistown Tennis Club, the tournament has broken all records by attracting 110 players from across the country.

It beat the Phikwe Open held in April and the PGN Junior Open hosted by Gaborone in February, whose numbers failed to reach the 100 mark, going only as far as 80 at the most.

The competition attracted players aged five to 18 and tennis clubs from Francistown, Gaborone, Orapa, Selebi Phikwe, Re Ba Bona Ha players from Serowe and even BISA players from Nata and Masunga schools.

Some of the best junior players in the country such as Mark Nawa, Kao Lenkopanye, Silas Charama, Leungo Monnayoo, Anelle Maplanka and Atshele Phatshwane were in good form scooping gold medals in their respective categories.

In an interview with BOPA, Botswana Tennis Association (BTA) secretary general, Tefo Tefo noted that the competition was the third to be held this year after the Phikwe Open and the PGN Junior Open.

“Our intention is to use these tennis opens to gauge the potentials of our local junior players and be able to rank them nationally according to the points they accumulate throughout this year’s tennis tournaments,” he said.

 Mr Tefo said currently there was no ranking system in place, but was positive that many of the players would know their national rankings in three weeks’ time.

He advised parents to give children utmost support and encouragement by ensuring they did not miss any tournament as consistency would result in the accumulation of points used for gauging their rankings.

The secretary general said forthcoming competitions for the rest of 2018 included the Botswana Open to be held between June and July, Francistown Open slated for September and Re Ba Bona Ha Open between November and December.

Places which never hosted big tennis tournaments such as Maun and Lobatse will be utilised this year, he said. ENDS