This archive report was first published on 6 June 2020.
Published on June 6, 2020, award-winning coach Rosemary Owino is on a mission to promote tennis in Kenya. She believes that the construction of public tennis courts is crucial for the sport's growth and success.
According to Owino, who is also a General High Performance Sports mentor, the lack of tennis courts in Kenya is a major hindrance to the sport's development. She argues that the country needs more public tennis courts to enable kids to hone their skills at a tender age and benefit from sports.
“Building public tennis courts is a worthy investment for posterity as the future of upcoming tennis players is dependent on infrastructure, motivation, and quality of coaching,” Owino said.
Owino, who is an International Tennis Federation (ITF) Travelling coach, also believes that the COVID-19 pandemic should be an eye-opener to the government and corporate world to spread tennis courts across estates. She suggests that the government and corporate entities should consider building public tennis courts in estates like Umoja or Kibra to enable easy access for underprivileged people.
As local stakeholders mull over a realistic resumption plan, Owino hopes that tennis, being a non-contact sport, will be given the green light to resume action just as golf did with a raft of measures. She believes that tennis is a sport that embraces the spirit of social distancing, and players are positioned more than one-and-a-half meters apart.
“Tennis is a sport which embraces the spirit of social distancing as we are positioned more than the one-and-half meters apart. We never get to meet or share anything apart from the ball flying from one end of the court to the next which we don’t necessarily need to touch,” Owino said.
Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Owino remains optimistic about the future of tennis in Kenya. She believes that the emergence of young and talented players, such as Angela Okutoyi and Albert Njogu, will propel Kenya to par with other powerhouse tennis-playing nations.
However, Owino acknowledges that the country needs to work harder to achieve this goal. She calls for concerted efforts from all stakeholders, including the government, corporate entities, and sports clubs, to build the sport.
“The secret to staying at the top level is to retain the people that are working a chance to show them (players) the right direction and see them succeed in the next 10 years, we have potential to do better, with less breaks we are able to achieve because we have the right kind of players and conducive weather,” Owino said.
