16 Jul 2024

The wait is finally over as Tennis World Cup (Davis Cup) Africa Group V starts in Gaborone today until Saturday. 

Botswana, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mozambique, Congo, Gabon, Seychelles, Mauritania, Lesotho, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan and Libya make the list of participating countries, which are expected to compete for two spots for promotion to Africa Group IV.

Botswana Tennis Association vice president - technical, Nonofo Othusitse said everything was in place for the big event.He said the National Tennis Centre was ready to host the event and that four courts had undergone resurfacing in preparation for the tournament.

Othusitse said countries would be divided into a pool of three nations (A) and three pools of four nations (B,C and D)

Othusitse said the Davis Cup was played on a Round Robin basis whereby countries within a pool play each other.

The nations finishing on first position in each pool, he said would proceed to the promotional playoffs, which would include four countries.

He said the round robin would be played from today to Friday then followed by Play-offs to determine the two nations to be promoted to Group IV on Saturday.

Othusitse said the tournament officials included referee, Patrick Kamuhia from Kenya, assistant referee Anton Rens from South Africa and 11 chair umpires from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Algeria had already arrived in Gaborone and were ready for the event.

“In addition to that, 40 local officials have been engaged as line umpires, while 50 children have been engaged as ball persons,” said Othusitse.

Meanwhile, Team Botswana captain, Petrus Molefe said the players were ready and had been looking forward to the event. 

Preparations, he said were progressing well and that all players had been training hard and understood the assignment.

“I am happy to announce that we managed to deal with Denzel Seetso’s fever and his body responded very well. So we are good to go,” he said.

Team Botswana is made up of Seetso, Batsomi Marobela, Tsholofelo Tsiang, Mark Nawa, Esi Molefe, and Seabo Saleshando as a reserve. Ends