By Phillip Orwa
A fortnight after Kenya held the African Forward Summit, a milestone interaction between France and African nations, Tennis Kenya has served the first ace in launching partnerships with French authorities with a view to fast-tracking development of the sport.
Tennis Kenya President Wanjiru Mbugua-Karani is in France, where she met with the Mayor of the Southern France city of Istres, Robin Prétot, to launch an exchange programme between the elite Istres Sport Tennis Club and Tennis Kenya that will see players from both countries train together and play against one another in reciprocal visits.
Mbugua-Karani expressed her gratitude to the Mayor for the deal, saying Kenyan players stand to benefit enormously from the elite coaching programmes run at Istres, on whose clay courts French legends like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gaël Monfils and Richard Gasquet, among others, honed their skills.
“It is a great opportunity for our players to be welcomed to this city. The people of Istres have been very gracious, very open and very welcoming. They have so much for our players to make use of – their courts, their facilities, their coaches. This is such a great step for Tennis Kenya and for the City of Istres,” Mbugua-Karani remarked.
On his part, the newly-elected Mayor of Istres, Prétot, said: “We are very honoured to have this relationship with Kenya and with the Tennis Federation of Kenya. It is always a pleasure to welcome you and to welcome your team. This partnership may improve our players and also help them discover other countries. It is a pleasure and honour to have you here, and I am also looking forward to coming to Kenya. To improve this kind of partnership and co-operation is very important for our city and our country too.”
Mbugua-Karani noted that the partnership is reciprocal: “We are not just coming to Istres, but we are welcoming them to come to Kenya, to get a feel of Kenya, to understand Kenya and to know Kenya, and so we are very excited about this and looking forward to hosting them in Nairobi too. We have full support from our government and the Cabinet Secretary for Sports, and the government delegation was also expected here to join us on this special occasion.”
Earlier, the Tennis Kenya President toured the first-class facilities at Istres Sport Tennis Club, taken around by the club’s Director Laurent Vigne, who is also an elite coach.
Istres Sport Tennis Club boasts five indoor and four outdoor courts with new generation artificial clay and also has several squash and padel courts, including a mega indoor padel centre constructed by French football legend Zinedine Zidane, who hails from the region.
The club has 10 professionals teaching 800 club members of all levels, including baby tennis, tennis school, adult lessons, competition and adapted sports. Beyond pure tennis technique, the instructors strive to instil in everyone the values important to Istres Sports Tennis: Friendliness, Training, Solidarity, and Self-Improvement.
“Today I’m very excited to be in the City of Istres and at the Istres Sport Tennis Club, which has been able to host two of our top under-16 players (Jeff Okuku and Aum Chandarana) in February and March, and they had such a good time,” the Tennis Kenya President said.
Tennis Kenya is expected to cement another monumental partnership with the French Tennis Federation this weekend on the sidelines of the French Open at Roland-Garros, Paris, in the presence of Kenya’s Ambassador to Paris, Ms Betty Cherwon, and other high-ranking officials from Kenya and France.
A key technical component of the programme will be knowledge transfer focused on clay court development.
