Four tennis players for camping in Pretoria

Accra, Oct 11, GNA - Four tennis players will soon proceed to South Africa on a month's long training programme to put them in shape for an international tournament to be hosted by Ghana later in December. The trip is being organised by Areeba, sponsors of the Ghana Tennis Association (GTA).

Mr Charles Kudjo Atta, General Secretary of the GTA in an interview with the GNA Sports in Accra, said the training camp schedule for the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Trainers Assistance Training Centre in Pretoria is aimed at polishing the play of the players. The four selected players are Fred Egyir, Manford Owusu, Michael Nortey and Emmanuel Kpodo.

Mr Atta said the month long training camp has been timed to coincide with a major tennis tournament involving countries from the sub-region scheduled for Accra in December.

He said the tournament, which is to be hosted by the GTA is to unearth talents in the sub-region and for that matter Ghana for further grooming of the players with the aim of them taking over from the present crop of players who form the present Golden Rackets.

Mr Atta said the sponsors of the GTA are also take care of the accommodation and feeding, airfares and pocket money of the players among others.

He said whilst in South Africa, the four players would join up with another Ghanaian, Emmanuel Mensah who is currently at the Institute on a one year ITF renewable scholarship.

Ghana's association with the ITF training institute in Pretoria has been on-going on for some years now as the current national number one, Henry Adjei-Darko also had a year's stint at the same place on an ITF scholarship.

He said all the plans by the GTA is to ensure that players of the national tennis team are kept busy to help the country regain her Euro-Africa Zone 2 status after the country was relegated to zone three last July.