BTA lauds Selebi-Phikwe tennis players

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Thursday April 29, 2010 00:00

 

His statement comes after the players excelled at the John Pickles and Sons junior developmental tournament that ended in Gaborone on Sunday. A strong field of 150 players took part in the annual tournament.

Tsiang told Mmegi Sport that it is not the first time players from Selebi-Phikwe have done well at the event. He said the club has consistently performed well in other tournaments. He explained that John Pickles and Sons have been assisting BTA in developing talent for some time now. Tsiang said interest in tennis is growing in Botswana and the only challenge is lack of sponsorship. He commended the Selebi-Phikwe community for being supportive to tennis, which has seen players excelling. He said players are doing well because of the good training that they are receiving from their coach, Wellington Sibanda.

Selebi-Phikwe won the Under-12 girls' doubles through Rebecca George and Lone Kgosietsile with Laone Sebakile and Kitso Letang getting the boys' gold. In the Under-14 category, Botho Sanki teamed up with Gorata Keabile to win the girls' section, while Emmanuel Mabechu and Mpho Mbizo came out tops in the boys' section. In the Under-16 category, it was another sweep by Selebi-Phikwe with Thato Mbeleka winning gold while Pako Mbeleka and Onkabetse Mompati were victorious in the doubles.

Selebi-Phikwe coach, Sibanda attributed his team's performance to BTA's newly introduced points system. He said the John Pickles tournament provided good competition.

Sibanda said the points' systems, which is used to rank players, motivated the athletes to do well. The coach said he took some players for a tournament in Zimbabwe and the performance was impressive. The players were picked from different clubs in the country.  He said one of the players, Ivy Mokobe from Gaborone won the Under 16 singles and doubles titles in Zimbabwe.

'The tournament was a good exposure to the players. This will give them confidence when they play international tournaments. We need such tournaments to be able to grow our players,' he said. Sibanda commended the BTA for introducing coaches in other regions such as Molepolole, Jwaneng and Francistown. He said this will improve competition. 'All along, coaches have been in Gaborone and Selebi-Phikwe. It is a positive development that the association has introduced,' he said.