Mbombela Open to encourage tennis on Social Sundays
Locals gathered for the first ever Social Tennis Sunday to showcase their skills and learn more about this sporting code.
A local sporting organisation, Mbombela Open, boasts of nurturing young and old tennis players in the city to create community participation in this sporting code.
Ahead of the Mbombela Open Tournament in May, featuring some southern African tennis players, some locals participated in the first Social Tennis Sunday at the Van Riebeeck Sports Park on February 18.
New and experienced tennis players took over the courts, showcasing their skills and love of the sport.
The director of the Mbombela Open, Sabelo Mathebula, said the aim of social tennis is to create awareness of the sport.
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“This was a fun-filled day on which we also taught those who want to learn how to play or to generally understand the sport. Tennis is more of a lifestyle sport, and we want to introduce it at coaching clinics and street tennis festivals at local schools and shopping centres in the City of Mbombela, while making this a concession of promoting the sport as we build the Mbombela Open to be the pride of the province.
“We believe that over time, the sporting platform will create employment opportunities that will benefit the locals, especially women and the youth, while offering vast sport entertainment that will attract the attention of the tennis community globally.”
Mbombela Open is the brainchild of the Barberton-born tennis enthusiast Mathebula, who is a junior Tennis South Africa coach, a head coach at Penryn College and a development officer for Mpumalanga Tennis.
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He is a professional tennis coach who runs a coaching academy called Tennis Base in Mbombela, Barberton and eManzana.
