Tennis sensation Tsiang secures AJC berth

Kabelo Boranabi | Wednesday January 20, 2016 14:19

 

Only one member of the group that was sent to South Africa managed to secure a slot in the Africa Junior Championships

The 13-year-old gained automatic qualification after reaching the quarter-final stage.

However, she had to settle for fifth position after she failed to proceed to the semi-finals.

Tsiang, who is based at the High Performance Centre in South Africa, is the only local player to qualify for the AJC. 

The Botswana Tennis Association (BTA) had targeted four qualifying spots at the sub-regional tourney.

The team’s coach, Lashani Madubela expressed disappointment with the results.

“We had hoped for much better results looking at the talent we had in the team.  I’m disappointed to have not met our target, but I would like to applaud our players for putting up an excellent and brave performance at the competition,” he said. “Our players had stage fright in the first games. They lacked the psychological aspect of the game. We managed to solve that problem, most of our guys finished in positions nine to 11,” he said.

Madubela further said the BTA development structures are on the right course as it was evident with the Under-12, which performed well at the tourney.

“The future of tennis is in good hands, one of our players, Leungo Monnayoo managed to beat the top seed in the Under-12’s category. 

This shows that we can match other countries in terms of the technical and tactical aspects of the game we just need to give the players that moral support.”

“I have no doubt in Tsiang’s capabilities, she will represent the country well at the AJC, she has a good fighting spirit.  She trains with some of the best players at the centre on a weekly basis. 

She will definitely bring positive results.  We also need to give our junior players exposure by playing more often at invitational tournaments in countries like Zimbabwe and Namibia as this can help improve their game,” Madubela said.