Johannesburg, South Africa – Tennis South Africa (TSA) on Friday launched its latest Growthpoint Development Centre -  in Soweto, Johannesburg.

The Soweto facility is the second of five TSA Growthpoint Development Centres to be launched in the next few months. The first Development Centre was launched in Cape Town late last year.

The Soweto centre is based at the historic Arthur Ashe Tennis Complex in Jabavu, and is aimed at providing a platform to grow the sport of tennis across the greater Johannesburg area. TSA recognises that for the game of tennis to grow it needs to make the sport accessible to all communities in South Africa. These new TSA Growthpoint Development Centres are the start of that process.

“The launch of the Growthpoint Development Centres are a key foundation of TSA’s new transformation plan. We see them as galvanising forces for tennis development in the target communities – both from a grassroots participation, as well as a high performance perspective. The launch of the Soweto centre is a highly symbolic step forward for the Federation and it is appropriate that it should be based at the historic Arthur Ashe tennis centre.” said Tennis South Africa CEO, Richard Glover.

The new Soweto centre has both a grassroots and a junior high performance focus – more specifically:

  • To integrate with and provide support to existing tennis development initiatives in Gauteng – including providing coaching expertise and training support for these projects.
  • To grow the sport in target schools in the surrounding area.
  • To act as a platform for junior talent identification and junior talent development – especially in terms of providing talented junior players from the community with coaching and equipment support, a long term player development plan and access into selected TSA junior tournaments.

Norbert Sasse, the Group CEO of Growthpoint Properties concluded: “We wanted to sponsor a sport where we could invest at grassroots level and we are delighted to see that our partnership with Tennis South Africa is starting to make an impact. Our intention is to make a lasting difference to the sport of tennis in the country by creating new opportunities for children and adults from all backgrounds to learn, compete and excel. The Growthpoint Development Centres are intended to give tennis players – young and old – space to thrive.”

The Soweto centre has been made possible, thanks to support from Growthpoint Properties, Dunlop Sport, the National Lotteries Commission, the City of Johannesburg and the Department of Sport and Recreation.

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