26 Feb 2025

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) girls singles has placed Botswana wheelchair tennis player, Omphile Bothasitse in top 10 in Africa. 

The Botswana Tennis Association (BTA) president, Oaitse Thipe said they are happy with their players achievement more so that she is also ranked 29 in the world. 

He said this is a good development, given that moving forward she could be able to qualify for high-level events. 

Furthermore, he said they need her to continue to train and play tournaments, which he said is a very expensive programme to maintain. 

“We are now appealing to the corporate world to be able to partner with us to maintain the grassroots wheelchair tennis programme,” he said. 

Thipe said he was hipe said he was hopeful that in the coming years, they would be in good position to roll out wheelchair tennis to other parts of the country, where they have clubs. In other issues, Keseketswe ‘Kessie’ Ketletseng, recently attained a white badge level recognition under ITF officiating. The BTA president said the recognition would allow her to officiate at the high level events around the world. “For us as an association, we are extremely happy because we are increasing the numbers of white badge officials that we have as we want to host more events,” he said. He said for them to continue to host high ranked events, they need more local qualified tennis officials. Furthermore, he said Ketletseng is the second woman to attain the white badge, after high-ranking Gaone Poane who represented Botswana with pride at the 2024 Olympics, as she was the line judge in the men’s single. ENDS