It would have been a tournament that would have made great strides in the fight against gender-based violence, while also promoting tennis as a sport among South Africa’s less fortunate.

Unfortunately, it ended in embarrassment for the entire tennis community of South Africa.

The organizers’ decision to “postpone” the tournament indefinitely seems on the face of it to be a flimsy excuse to distract attention from a debacle that is once again embarrassing South African sport on the world stage. The chances of this tournament ever happening seem very slim at this point.

The organizers initially announced months ago that this tournament, which they dubbed “The Africa Cares Women’s Tennis Challenge”, would be an “annual two-day tennis tournament featuring local and internationally celebrated tennis players” and that they planned to present it for three consecutive years in South Africa.

The United Nations Children’s Fund would apparently also have been part of the organization of the tournament.

“Tennis is one of the biggest sports in Africa. Globally the love for sport breaks barriers created by race, gender, age, geographical location and social upbringing. We aim to use tennis as a vehicle to inspire change and deliver key messaging. We want people from all across the world to gather together in Gauteng for the Africa Cares Tennis Challenge and celebrate South Africa through this sport. We want South Africans to feel involved, included and feel a sense of pride knowing that we are hosting such a major event here in South Africa, that has the potential to make such a big impact across the world,” the organizers’ original statement have read months ago.

Initially, big names such as the retired superstar, Martina Hinges, the current number two women’s player in the world, Ons Jabeur and the two-time Grand Slam champion from Romania, Simona Haleb, were linked to the tournament.

Later, the former American Open champion, Sloane Stephens’ name was also thrown into the hat, while South Africa’s top women’s player, Isabella Kruger (number 338 on the WTA rankings) was also invited to provide local representation.

With several days left before the tournament was to begin, two-time Grand Slam finalist and former world number one, Karolina Pliskova, was the last name presented to the media as a participant.

The launch and opening ceremony of the tournament had apparently already been arranged and would have taken place on Friday 2 December at the Freedom Park museum in Pretoria.

However, things started to go badly wrong when out of the blue the Lions Cricket Union issued a statement on Tuesday afternoon to give notice that they were withdrawing support from the tournament and that it would no longer take place at the Wanderers stadium. They did not hesitate to mention that they were “let down” by the organizers of the tournament. After that, Tennis SA also distanced themselves from the tournament on Wednesday “to protect their name and reputation”.

In response to this, the organizers first announced that the tournament would be moved to the Arthur Ashe tennis complex in Soweto, but a day later the plug was pulled and it was announced that the tournament “unfortunately has to be postponed”.

The future of the tournament is now uncertain, but it is highly doubtful that top world stars and their agents will be interested again in a similar proposition to visit South Africa after this debacle.

It is also uncertain what will become of the money of tennis supporters who have already bought tickets for the event. According to some reports, the cheapest tickets for the tournament would have cost R300, while the most expensive seats would have cost fans five-figure sums.

Do you have more information about the story?

Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram