Young Seetso ranked first in Africa
The sky is the limit for the young tennis player Denzel Seetso (14) who is now officially ranked first in Africa after winning individual Under 14 International Tennis Federation (ITF)/Confederations of African Tennis (CAT) tournaments this past Thursday.This is after almost 20 years of medal drought for the locals. This was confirmed by Botswana Tennis Association (BTA) Vice-President (VP) Oaitse Thipe in an interview with BG Sport this week.
Thipe said Seetso’s track record has been rather impressive as the young lad has been triumphing a lot recently, “Denzel won a total of five tournaments across the continent to topple his competitors to the pole position. He also won doubles title in Algeria, Benoni and singles title in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Madagascar and all these tournaments were sanctioned by ITF which makes the boy a Moghul,” he said.
The last time Botswana had an impressive junior was 20 years back, where Gaebolae Seleke was ranked No.1 in the respective continent (Africa) hence Seetso is following along the lines to becoming a gemstone in the tennis circles.BTA VP further said the boy’s (Seetso) achievement is a blessing in disguise for the country, “We have endured so many years without anyone occupying the top seed in the country. This has been a worrying factor but now the future looks bright for our tennis,” said the BTA VP.
Meanwhile, the local Under 14 team which boasted remarkable players such as Mark Nawa, Arnold Bleskit and the man of the moment Denzel Seetso did not come back empty handed at the ITF/CAT under 14 and 16 Zonal Qualifiers which were held in Namibia this past week, “The boys have qualified for the Tennis Africa Championships which are slated for August 2019 in Tunisia. Furthermore, the preparations start as early as now so that we play a good tournament,” he explained.
On the other hand, Thipe said they are going to try hard to engage corporate companies to get involved, “We are going to work very hard to prepare the boys for the upcoming games though it’s still early stages. We will try and source out sponsorship and mind you, there will be a preparatory individual tournament in March and we ought to prepare for it as well,” said Thipe. Efforts to reach the boy’s mentor Phenyo Matong proved unfruitful as his phone did not go through. They were said to be travelling back to Botswana from a tournament in Namibia.