South African players dominate ITF junior’s tournament

WINDHOEK, 16 MAY – South African players proved to be a of a different class at a recent Tennis tournament, ploughing their way through the rest of the Under 18 boys and girls junior teams that participated.

At a six day tournament that saw Bank Windhoek collaborating with the Namibian Tennis Association (NTA) and the International Tennis Federation (ITF), South African players dominated both the doubles and singles events in the capital Windhoek.

Khololwam Montsi won the boys singles division, while Marne Dercksen scooped up the title in the girl’s singles division. Montsi beat his fellow compatriot Charl Morgan to win 6-4, 6-7, (3) 6-1. Dercksen defeated Denmark’s Divine Dasam Nweke 6-2, 7-5 to clinch the girl’s title.

Swedish pair Hugo Regner and Eric van Nunen battled for and won the boys doubles event, while the South African doubles team represented by Marne Dercksen and Tamsin Hart, scooped up the girl’s doubles division.

The grade five singles and doubles tournament, saw 32 players in the boys section and 25 in the girls section compete for top honours. They will realise their performance grading after the release of the ITF rankings scheduled to take place towards end of May.

“We witnessed some high-class tennis on display during the tournament, most notably in both the singles and doubles finals,” said the tournament’s Director, Wellington Sibanda.

A total of seven players made up the Namibian team; three girls and four boys. From these, only Codie van Schalkwyk managed to progress as far as the quarterfinals, where he crashed out to South African Charl Morgan, 6-4, 6-0. Other countries included Finland, Australia, France, Great Britain, United States of America, Denmark, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Algeria, Spain, Russia and Mozambique.

The six-day sporting event started on Monday, 7 and concluded on Saturday, 12 May 2018. – NDN Staffer