FIRST FRIENDLY FOR VOSLOORUS CHILDREN

In a continuing attempt to give the children form the development program at Vosloorus different training and competition they played a friendly match against Janet Jooste Tennis Academy in Alberton which is close to Vosloorus. Both teams fielded ten players of both boys and girls.

Janet has a thriving academy at the club and she readily agreed that we should hold such a morning. In trying to “mix and match” the players from both teams we managed to take some of our top players as well as though who had benefitted from the one day tournaments staged by Gauteng East during last year. We also managed to get a number of 10 and 12 year olds involved even if their tournament experience was limited.

At the top end our two top boys had good tennis with both of them being tested before running our narrow winners with Sanele edging home 6-3 and Thabang even close at 5-4.

There was some encouraging tennis played by two young girls Angel and Thando and the benefit of them having played in the one day tournaments last year was evident. Angel in particular was very steady and prepared to rally and wait for the opening before going for her shots. Consequently she did not drop a game. Thando showed great patience before edging home 5-4.

The result was immaterial , but we did manage to win both the singles and doubles, as the occasion was designed to give them the opportunity to play against different players and socialize off court with new people. It really was a great exercise in “hands across the net.”

It was agreed that we would repeat the process later in the year.

In the meantime two of our players have been selected to attend the Gauteng East trials to choose the teams for the inter provincial high schools tournament early in April. This is continuing the succession of players from this program who have progressed to reach the level whereby they can play representative tennis.