Funded by the International Tennis Confederation, the East African Center is located in Bujumbura-Burundi. The objective of the center is to train young tennis players from East Africa aged from 10 to 18, so that they become professional tennis players.–By Lorraine Josiane Manishatse
Young tennis players trained at Bujumbura East African Center.©Iwacu
The East African Training Center was created in 2009 in Bujumbura-Burundi. It is one of the Burundi Tennis Federation projects. The center is in partnership with the Burundi federation and African Tennis Federation as it is in the African Federation Zone.
It is worth noticing that the International Tennis Federation funds all necessary needs for the Center. Thierry Ntwali, the Center Director indicates that the objective of the center is to train young talented tennis players from East Africa in order to become professional players.
He highlights that for having access to that center, many factors are considered. “The player must be talented, aged 14 and under and come from East Africa. The selection is made during the East Africa Championship organized every year”.
Today, the center has 9 young full time players : two Kenyans, two Tanzanians, one Rwandan and four Burundians. “Those youths are kept in the center until they reach the age of 18,” he says. Ntwali explains that when children arrived in the center, they get what good parents can give to their children.
There are only two activities in the Center: “Children get Tennis sessions every day; they are supervised by three coaches engaged for that, they also get school education in one of the most famous schools of Bujumbura. Now, they study at King School,” he highlights.
He adds that when those young trainees are 18, they leave the center because they already got a world ranking in tennis. According to him, after 18 the young are no longer minors, he are supposed to have finished secondary school. “They are sent in USA, they make their own choice: if they want, they enter the University or they start their professional life as tennis players, where they can be classified among 50 players in the World,” he states.
They spend less time in class
According to Ntwali staying in the center requires them making much effort to study. “Our trainees are asked to work hard at school. If one is not very good at school and that he is an overage tennis player, he is dismissed. Players should be talented both in class and tennis,” he states. “It is heartbreaking, but they must accept it like that. Since November, they have travelled 11 times, it seems that, they haven’t been present in class even 1/3 of the time,” he regrets.
In spite of this, Ntwali is satisfied with the center’s results. He mentions that it has positive impacts: the performance of the trainees from the center has been outstanding during the African Junior Tennis Championship held at Nairobi in Kenya this last month.
“A Burundian of 13 years old has won the championship while three others from the center (aged under 14) have also reached the quarter final,” proudly says Ntwali.
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