Tennis in offing for wheelchair-bound players

Thato Kala | Wednesday January 22, 2014 16:39

Botswana joins South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Kenya who introduced wheelchair tennis last year.

The ITF gave the association the thumbs-up after looking into their proposal last year and went on to arrange a partnership with a foundation that deals with people with disabilities.

ITF is also sending a wheelchair tennis expert to come and get the programme off the ground in a few weeks’ time.

BTA president Nelson Amanze said this development makes tennis “a sport for all”. He said they had signed all agreement papers and are now waiting for equipment and the wheelchair expert.

“It is an exciting time for tennis, we need to reach everybody and we consider this a milestone for the sport’s family,” Amanze told Mmegi Sport.

BTF started engaging ITF last year on their intentions to extend tennis to the disabled in the country. “The idea is to make tennis accessible to all individuals, so we took steps last year and approached ITF who asked for a proposal and later approved it. They wanted to see how we were planning to run it,” he said.

He admitted wheelchair tennis was quite expensive and said they would seek partnerships with organisations that deal with disabled people.

“We want to get organisations working with people living with disabilities to get a buy into the programme,” he said

In the meantime, BTA will use the equipment provided by the ITF as well as the expertise of the wheelchair tennis expert coming to the country.

“We want to have trained coaches and people who will co-ordinate the game. We will start it on a two-year run and see how it goes,” Amanze said. South Africa have done very well in the game for the disabled with Lucas Sithole making history last year by becoming the first African to win a Grand Slam event.