South Africa ongoing tennis facility problems unlikely to end soon
The South African Lawn Tennis Union was formed back in 1903 and tennis has a reach history in this country at the very south of the African continent, with the South African Championships taking place between 1891-1967 at the Port Elizabeth Lawn Tennis Club. The event became a part of the Open era as well and some great names had all lifted titles there, including Reginald Doherty, Anthony Wilding, Roy Emerson, Manuel Santana, Tom Okker, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Jimmy Connors and Guillermo Vilas. After 1995, South Africa had no ATP tournaments until 2009 when the SA Tennis Open kicked off, staying in the calendar of three years and with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Feliciano Lopez and Kevin Anderson as the champions.
With a poor infrastructure and no financial backup, it was canceled after 2011 and there was a Challenger held there in 2013, standing as the last bigger men's tennis tournament on the professional level! Lack of facilities and the opportunities to play at home have been some of the leading problems for the lower-ranked tennis nations that have no modern tennis centers or the venues to stage Challengers or ATP events. To make things even worse, Tennis South Africa CEO, Richard Glover has revealed that the current situation will unlikely turn to better anytime soon with the lack of sponsors who would invest in this sport and offer more opportunities for the youngsters to train and play in own country.
With no ATP tournaments or Challengers, home players had a chance to compete at only three Futures events in the closing stages of the year, which means they had to spend the first 11 months playing all around the world and mostly far from home, which often costs a lot. At the moment, South Africa has only nine ranked players on the ATP singles list, led by world number 6 and a two-time Grand Slam finalist Kevin Anderson and the upcoming youngster Lloyd Harris who both enjoyed a great season.
Many famous persons from the world of sport had come to South Africa during 2018 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of national hero Nelson Mandela but tennis was left sidelined once again, despite the fact there is a top-10 player from this country and that Roger Federer's mother is also from South Africa. In addition, the South African Davis Cup squad lost both ties against Israel and Portugal in 2018 to stay away from the 24 teams that will fight in the Davis Cup Qualifiers in February. Anderson and Harris are the only South African players in the top-500 and the Federation will have to work really hard in 2019 in order to change that, with Glover hoping to present some positive signs of improvement in the next 12 months or so.
"It was like an impassable wall we had to climb," added the TSA CEO, "before coming up with an objective that is undeniably important as an injection in boosting interest in tennis in the country to the high level it reached in the past."
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2rzz7aw
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