Master of Ceremonies;
Deputy Minister of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), Honourable Mr Gert Oostuizen;
President of Tennis South Africa, Mr Bongani Zondi and all the board members present here this afternoon;
Director-General of SRSA and CEO of Tennis SA, Mr Alec Moemi and Mr Ian Smith respectively;
All Educators and Learners present here this afternoon to grace this auspicious event;
Parents and community members who are here today;
Sport people and the media;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
The dream of former tennis legend Arthur Ashe continues 20 years after his death with the announcement that the Soweto Open will return to Jabavu and be played once again at the Soweto venue that bears his name.
As the Tennis South Africa (TSA) President has alluded, in the 1970’s Arthur Ashe came to South Africa and visited Soweto and sowed the seed for the Arthur Ashe Tennis complex. It was built, Arthur Ashe helped fund this initiative but it was neglected to a point where no tennis could be played at the stadium. A partnership between TSA, Gauteng government, City of Johannesburg and the Lottery saw the Complex being rebuilt in 2008. And this inspired TSA to host an international event at the complex in 2009 to celebrate the new facility.
The tournament which was launched in 2009 and played successfully until 2011 was sadly dropped from the international calendar this year due to the international economic meltdown and global financial crisis.
We are therefore gathered here today to officially launch the return of the Soweto Tennis Open.Tennis South Africa (TSA) together with the Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) are today informing the entire nation of the intentions to host the Soweto Open in 2013. It is our belief that the Soweto Open in 2013 will attract more spectators than ever before and continues to expose many young people and develop players from disadvantage communities into the sport of tennis whilst at the same uplifting the standard of tennis in these areas.
In the same vein this event is aimed at developing creative programmes for daily tennis development programmes at the grassroots level. By doing this SRSA and TSA intends to craft an ambitious programme for skills transfer in areas of administration, coaching and officiating especially for emerging tennis players and professionals from historically disadvantaged and neglected communities. We also believe that initiatives of this nature will develop and nurture talent in tennis and expose our young men and women in tennis into international tennis market. SRSA is therefore excited by this brilliant initiative designed for the promotion of tennis in South Africa. We are more than happy to be a proud partner with Tennis South Africa in this 2013 Soweto Open.
In 2013 the Soweto Men’s Open and Soweto Women’s Open will be played at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Complex in April.Negotiations between SRSA and TSA with other strategic partners are at the advanced stage in order to see to it that sponsorship and joint venture come into fruition especially for prize money.In the meantime SRSA is committing an amount of R5 million towards the successful hosting of the event which will costs at around R7.25 million.
We are informed that already there has been great interest from international players who have confirmed their interest in participating in the tournament which has had champions to the likes of Frenchman Fabrice Santoro (2009), flamboyant Jamaican Dustin Brown (2010) and South African Davis Cup star Izak Van Der Merwe (2011). In the women folks side, top 100 players Anastasija Seastova of Latvia (2009), and Russians Nina Bratchikova (2010) and Valeri Savinykh (2011) are the former champions that also shown interest in the Soweto extravaganza.
We are impressed by the International character of the tournament.Firstly, it exposes our emerging professional players and the South African youth to the standard of playing of the people of the world. Secondly, it exposes other tennis players from around the world to the African and South African realities.Thirdly, it helps the sport and recreation fraternity continentally and internationally to achieve their stated goals of developing and deepening sport especially tennis in our communities whilst at the same time is taking tennis to higher heights in neglected and poor communities.
We are particularly impressed by the continued efforts of Tennis South Africa to make the Soweto Open to be an epitome for many globally recognised tennis tournaments in South Africa and Africa that will allow our players to gain international points.
This initiative is an incubator for sport development in South Africa and professionalisation of tennis; and we, further, believe it should continue to harness tennis talent in our country, and foster community development, social cohesion, economic development, integration and nationhood.
We are proud that it continues to imbue a new tradition for tennis in Africa; attracting the International stars of the future to South Africa, but, at the same time groom future International stars of South Africa.We are particularly impressed by its ability to showcase the local hidden sport and tennis talent of South African emerging tennis players and allow them to participate meaningfully and professionally in the tennis events of such magnitude of Soweto Open.
We are aware that in previous tournaments hosted by TSA and other stakeholders in yester years more than 31 countries were represented each year with a massive local, national and international media interest in the event due to its unique location and due to the fact that the legendary Arthur Ashe opened the stadium and the stadium is now named after this legend and sporting icon.
We were impressed by the partnership between the City of Johannesburg (CoJB) and TSA in the organisation and hosting of the tournament in previous years and hope that we can strengthen the partnership to make this a world class event for the future. We are convinced that this relationship was productive because It was a historical first time that a international tennis event was ever staged in Soweto.The tournament was a great success since its hosting from 2009 to 2011.
We are thankful that TSA has decided to host this international tournament once more at the stadium which would give prestige to the sport of tennis in our disadvantage areas whilst popularising the stadium and would help market this to national and international stakeholders and development programmes for the broader community.
Our government welcomes the bold steps taken by TSA and its partners to host this premier event and call on all our private sector companies to cooperate and work together with TSA to make the dream of all tennis loving South Africans a reality by sponsoring the Soweto Open. You will be doing this to make sure that developing tennis stars becomes the measure for world class tennis in our country.
This will help to boost tourism and local economic growth for Soweto and the surrounding communities and play a pivotal role to integrate all our people through tennis.
It is true that tennis, worldwide, is perceived to be the sport of the few and elite, the sport of affluent people who can afford and are perhaps continue to be perceived as a sport of the upper class in society. Hence initiatives of this nature are an attempt to demystify this myth and move the sport of tennis from abstract to concrete.
It is true that programmes and events like the Soweto Open through its planned build up programmes of development clinics to expose our people to tennis and make our young men and women more exposed to the game especially those from disadvantaged and neglected areas will revitalise the sport in all our communities.
This focused initiative will go a long way into speaking directly to our vision and mission of “improving the quality of life of all South Africans, foster social cohesion and enhance nation building by maximising access, development and excellence at all levels of participation in sport and recreation”.
To qualify the aforementioned statement, SRSA is convinced that “although no one should be excluded in sport, cognizance must be taken of the imbalances of the past and the greater needs of inclusion in historically disadvantaged and excluded groups and communities, particularly the poor and rural areas”.
We are moved by the commitment made by TSA together with SRSA to continue to make that dream a reality and ensure a continued exposure of all our people into tennis. In essence, this means, using sport and recreation as a vehicle for encouraging people to unite irrespective of colour, economic and political status, class and gender.
We are convinced that the basis for these programmes and activities are geared to create, encourage, promote, support and monitor the access in participation in sport; and the development and organisation of sport and recreation in all spheres of life in South Africa and Africa.
To reinforce that we will today donate and handover sports equipment especially tennis equipment and attire to the two participating schools in this event.
In the end, we would like to again call upon all stakeholders especially sponsors to come on board and work with us and TSA to make the aspirations and dreams of the youth of South Africa a reality.
Thank you.
Statement of the Minister of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), Honourable Mr Fikile April Mbalula (MP), on the occasion of the Media Launch of the Soweto Tennis Open taking place at Wanderers Club, Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, 26 Octobe
