10 Mar 2021

As the world is celebrating women’s month, in Botswana sport, it is befitting to celebrate Tshepiso Rebatenne.

In 2000, as a Form 1 pupil at Letlole Mosielele Junior Secondary School in Thamaga, she wished to play sport. 

She was considering joining the softball team, but a table tennis coach persuaded her to join his team. 

Little did she know that a decade later, her name would be celebrated as Botswana Table Tennis Association (BTTA)’s number one ranked female player, a feat she achieved in 2014.

Rebatenne was born 34 years ago in Thamaga to Benjamin and Pelonomi Rebatenne, the second in a family of four siblings, a sister and two brothers.

She did her primary and junior secondary education in Thamaga and went to Moshupa Senior Secondary School for Form Four and Five.

During her first year as a ping pong player, she managed to make it to the Botswana Integrated Sports Association (BISA) nationals, which she described as a great achievement although she did not win.

In 2002, she was the only female table tennis player in her school, which disadvantaged her because they had to participate as teams in competitions but she never gave up.

She explained that in 2003 she was the only female player who qualified for BISA finals, adding that the following year she ended at the zonal competitions.

After completing Form Five, she highlighted that she was in a hiatus from 2005 to 2007 as there were no clubs in Thamaga.

After the long break, she participated in the Orapa open tournament in 2008 and did not perform well, adding that by then she was a first year student at Botho University pursuing Information Technology and Business Skills. 

“Since there was no table tennis team at Botho University, I trained with the Gaborone Technical College team,” she said.

In 2009 her game improved and was number 17 in the BTTA female rankings, noting that she still had no club and was training at UB since everyone was allowed to train.

In 2010 she took part in the Botswana versus China competition where only the top 8 ranked players were invited.

From 2012 to 2014, she was a member of the BDF Table Tennis Club and officially joined Nhabe Table Tennis Club in 2014.

She described 2014 as a turning point in her sporting career as she was first called up for national team duty.

Still in 2014, she was part of the team that represented Botswana at the Zone 6 competitions in Zambia and they brought home a silver medal.  

She was also part of the national team that took part at the World Team Table Tennis Championship in Japan, although they did not do well.

According to Rebatenne one of the contributing factors to their poor performance was that they missed some games because they arrived in Japan when the tournament had already started.

In the same year, she took part in the South African Table Tennis National Championships where she won a bronze medal, becoming the first Motswana to win a medal at that particular tournament.

Rebatenne said in 2015 she took part in the All Africa Games and ended in the last 32. In 2016 she secured sponsorship from Pan Solutions and Botho University to partake in the Africa Championships and ended in the last 16.

BTTA’s number one female ranked player for eight consecutive years said she was invited to the Africa Top 16 tournament in Kenya in 2018 and ended in the group stages.

Due to financial constraints, she failed to honour an invitation to the Africa Top 16 tournament in 2020.

She said she won all but two local tournaments in 2020, which she lost to Boitshwarelo Butale. She also won the Phoenix Independence grand final and walked away with P31 000. She also emerged the champion of Gaborone Open as well as Botswana Open tournaments. 

She was also the champion of the BTTA Top 16 tournament in 2021.

She explained that she was inspired by Nigerian player, Aruna Qudri, who she first met in 2014. BOPA