Top international tennis event for SA

Tennis South Africa has been awarded the right to host the 2017 Young Seniors World Team and Individual Championships in Cape Town from 19 March to 1 April.

This was announced by Tennis SA CEO, Richard Glover at a media briefing at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Rosebank. He was accompanied by his board member responsible for seniors tennis, Ronnie Van ‘t Hof, and events director Ridhwaan Dawood.

Glover said the International Tennis Federation (ITF) had awarded Tennis SA to host the team championships, which is the highest ranked event on the ITF Seniors Circuit for men and women in the age categories of 35 to 45.

The team championships took place for the first time in 2015, and until now, this age group had been catered for within the senior’s championships. This year’s tournament will feature 86 teams from 26 countries.

Glover said after the team championships, the individual championships would follow.

Van ‘t Hof said the individual championships will be from 25 March to 1 April, adding that since the tournament’s inception in 1981, the number of competitors has continued to increase year after year.

He explained that there were originally only four age categories but that this number has increased to 21 with more than 1 000 players competing in both singles and doubles.

When the tournament increased in popularity, the ITF took a decision in 1993 to divide it into two separate events, the seniors for younger veterans and super seniors for the older veterans.

Due to its continued success, Van ‘t Hof said the ITF was in 2015 forced again to divide it into three separate events – young seniors, seniors and super seniors.

With the individual event following the team event at the same venue, Van ‘t Hof said after representing their nations, many players were expected to stay on in Cape Town to compete for individual honours.

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