22 May 2025

Botswana has been granted rights to host 2025 Davis Cup Africa Zone Group V for the second consecutive year.

The tournament, known as the World Cup of Tennis, will be held at the National Tennis Centre in Gaborone, from July 23-26 this year

In the last edition also held in Gaborone, Botswana won Pool C, but lost to Gabon in the promotional playoffs.

Botswana Tennis Association’s (BTA) Vice President, Nonofo Othusitse confirmed  in an interview that Botswana would once again host this prestigious event.

This, he said followed the resounding success of the 2024 Davis Cup Africa Group V event, which Botswana proudly hosted.

Othusitse said the Davis Cup, was the premier international team event in men’s tennis, organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

He said the 2025 Africa Group V event would see 15 nations compete for two promotion spots to Africa Group IV. 

“These nations include the host Botswana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Madagascar, Mozambique, Congo, Cameroon, Seychelles, Mauritania, Lesotho, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, and Libya.”

Othusitse said the hosting of the Davis Cup was in line with the BTA and BNSC strategies of hosting high-profile events.

“The fact that we have been appointed hosts by the ITF to once again host the event is a huge sign of confidence on our abilities and capacity as a nation to host such high level events, ,” he said.

Hosting of these events, he said, brought a number of benefits such as enhanced athlete development as emerging athletes were exposed to high level competition experience. Othusitse said in 2024,  Botswana had one of the youngest teams at the event with an average age of 19. He said hosting raised the profile of Botswana as a host for international sports events, attracting future tournaments and visitors hence boosting sports tourism.

 Furthermore, Othusitse said there was also an economic impact as increased spending on hospitality and related services would be realised.

Additionally, the athletes get to compete on home soil in front of their supporters while Batswana at large get to experience of the Davis cup and see their players perform.

Othusitse said the Local Organising Committee has already been confirmed and they had hit the ground running, having some engagements with their previous sponsors and partners.

He said while they received positive reviews and feedback on the successful 2024 event, from different stakeholders including nations that competed, spectators, sponsors, media and local sports authorities such as BNSC and BNOC, they aimed to host a much bigger and approved event.

“We are therefore inviting corporate Botswana to the party. Botswana tennis is open for business. One of the positives last year was that for the first time, we managed to broadcast live tennis matches which enabled tennis fans to follow the event from all over the world. We also witnessed some of the biggest crowds ever at a local tennis.” BOPA