Success breeds more of the same The one day tournaments organized by Gauteng East Tennis Association have grown in stature and numbers each time they have been held. The fourth event, which took place on National Women’s Day, attracted 210 players up from 132 on the last one. Of those 60 played in the Red ball event and 150 in the Green ball section. This is proving to be an invaluable way of introducing new players to tournament play and the benefit to the “newbies” is that they will not come up against players far superior in knowledge and ability to them as they are grouped in sections according to ability. It has been a boon for the development children from our Vosloorus programme and an excellent introduction to tournament playing conditions. With a maximum of eight in a section and playing just seven games they end up having played almost a full mornings tennis where enjoyment is the key factor and not the result. We entered eight into the event, four into the red ball and four into the green ball and this brings the total number to 32 children that we have entered and for twenty four this has been their first exposure to tournament play. For the two young Silinga sisters, Siyamthanda and Ziyanda it was “red letter” day in the red ball event and as can be seen from their picture, they are proud of their medals. In the green ball event the new inductees Thando Xolo and Angela Nkosi really enjoyed their day and came away with more wins than losses which augurs well for the future. The more opportunities we can give to our development players of playing in this type of event will ensure a positive growth path for them and by concentrating now on the 12 to 14 year old age group, the full benefit will be gained when they graduate to the sanctioned tournaments later in their careers. We will continue to support this initiative by Gauteng East and are delighted that the rest of the community has ensured a continual upward growth path in numbers participating.
