Vosloorus report 2021 Without fear of contradiction and despite the ever-present threat of Covid hanging over us, I can honestly say that 2021 was by far the best year on record for the Vosloorus development program. This is by way of results achieved, players playing tournaments and representation in the provincial team. This was achieved against the background of Covid, and restrictions placed on us due to the pandemic. Limited numbers of players on court at any one time at various stages of the year, limited attendance for spectators at tournaments and limitation on numbers at both indoor and outdoor events, all hindered our players development. Although we saw a drop off in numbers attending the coaching early in the year, once restrictions were lifted, we were able to recoup most of the children by the time of writing this report. Over the past two years we have lost our top two boys, both of whom are now out of juniors, and our two top girls played little tennis this year due to their Matric exams at the year end and both leave the junior ranks as of now. We then decided that with the bulk of our children in the 10-14 age group, we concentrated on nurturing these players and I am pleased to say that we have a good strong group of players here who, with the right training and mentorship, will be an asset to the game and the program. We have strength in our girls in this area but sadly, very few boys at this stage. With regard to participation in tournaments, we again applaud Gauteng East Tennis junior committee on staging the one-day events for those players whose standard is just below that for the main Tennis SA sanctioned events. We wholeheartedly supported these five tournaments which again gave us the opportunity of “blooding” some of the younger players aged 10 and 11. This is a vital steppingstone in their tennis lives and they will and can learn the basics of tournament play. Also, it gives the children the opportunity of meeting and mixing with people from outside their township and broadens their minds. From a results point of view, we achieved some highly creditable success in the Gauteng East closed tournament which doubled as trials for next years inter-provincial. We ended with a girls doubles title; runners up in the girls doubles; semi-finalist in the girls singles and two fifth placed finishes. In the other tournaments we had a number of top eight finishes. In the mini-series and one-day events we had section winners at two of them and three runners up positions. The winners included a 9 year old girl playing with an 11 year old which was their first ever tournament. We had three players selected for the Gauteng East inter provincial which, due to Covid, was played on a regional basis rather than all 11 provinces meeting at a central venue. Although they played against the three strongest teams in the country, one girl won three of her matches and the reports back from the various team managers were glowing in their praise for the commitment and contribution to the team. “They left their hearts on the court” was one comment which is extremely pleasing to note. We managed to get two of our under 13 girls accepted into the provincial squad training program whereby they have two and a half hours of dedicated training on every other Saturday. The results from this training were evident in the last tournament (the trials) as they both exceeded past personal best finishes in both singles and doubles. The improvement in other players was also seen at the trials tournament with two of the boys achieving their best results due to far more consistency being evident in the game. I must again applaud the coach, Michael Lelosa for his continued commitment to his position and the improvement of the overall standard from the children is due largely to him and his dedication. Mike Dunk Chairman International Club SA
