The meeting started today (Friday) and ends on Sunday with local coaches, Wellington Sibanda, Kelebogile Monnayoo, and Tolamo Marebola, attending. The BTA president, Oaitse Thipe, told MmegiSport that the conference's objective is to share the latest coaching trends and knowledge with top coaches from around the world. Sibanda, who is based at the BMC Tennis Club in Maun, said the meeting is a refresher and they will benchmark on some new coaching ideas. “Otherwise what we are going to learn we will come back and share with fellow coaches to develop tennis to the next level,” Sibanda said.
The Maun BMC Tennis Club offers BTA junior development programmes. Monnayoo has been coaching the national Under-12 and Under-14 girls' teams while Marebola is based at Moeng College, which is a junior tennis initiative centre, which receives equipment from the BTA. The first day of the conference kicked off with regional and education updates by Riaan Kruger (ITF development officer - Africa). Thipe said the rest of the programme would see coaches taken through on and off the court presentations by various experts. Nick Vets from Belgium is presenting on creating a universe of exercises for players under eight on day one of the conference.
