WINDHOEK – The first round of this year’s NTA-FNB school tennis series was played on Saturday at the Olympia tennis courts of the Central Tennis Club.
A record 180 players from 10 schools participated for gold, silver and bronze medals and school awards. “We are happy that we have more schools and more players participating this year,” noted NTA tennis development coordinator, Kallie Heese.
“The increase in participation by both the numbers of pupils per school and the number of school teams will lead to better development at grass roots level. We were also positively surprised to see so many parents, teachers and friends observing the kids battling for individual and school team points here at the CTC courts,” he added.
According to Heese, each school can enter U10, U12 and U14 participants. Matches are played with soft tennis balls on small fields on a best of ten points modus. Each match player’s win contributes to his/her school’s total points. The player with the most wins can win the individual competition in his or her age group respectively.
The President of the Namibia Tennis Association, Mr Bob Mould, said that he hopes to see one of the tennis players competing at the Wimbledon Championships in future. He congratulated Kallie Heese and his development coaches for a job well done.
At the moment the NTA-FNB tennis school league is still limited to schools of the Khomas Region.
At the second stage the FNB tennis school league is expected to expand to different regions of the country. At the third stage a national championship among different regional school leagues will be conducted.
All schools in Namibia are invited to partake in tennis school tourneys and can also participate in the school league beginning in the second term.
By Staff Reporter