Barbados is building connections and seeking partnerships with African countries as the Barbados Professional Road Tennis Association (PRTA) spreads its wings.
President Dale Clarke made the trip to Zimbabwe earlier this month to follow up on connections established the year prior.
“I partnered with the Zimbabwe Professional Road Tennis Association and this project has been ongoing for over a year now,” he told Nation Sport.
“ So what we had done in January is, we had the Level 1 Introduction to Road Tennis course, where we will now have over 250-plus Zimbabweans, with a basic pro certificate and they should spread the road tennis throughout Zimbabwe.”
Linkages
The aim is to target all of the provinces within Zimbabwean road tennis and, afterward, the PRTA was given an invitation to the Endeavour Conference about sports economy in the city of Bulawayo.
“We went there to discuss the benefits of road tennis and what it’s going to do for the economy. We also went to get linkages with potential sponsors to help with the showcasing and the exhibitions – basically, the promotions that we want to do with road tennis to get it going in Zimbabwe.”
Clarke also mentioned that despite the rise of pickle ball, African nations like Zimbabwe, Rwanda, South Africa and Ghana, have expressed interest in bringing Barbados’ lone indigenous sport on board as they believe it will become more popular. “We were able to meet
with some other representatives from other African countries and they had expressed interest as well to give us the invitation. Obviously, the distance and the travel is a little concerning. So we’re trying to get as many partners on board as possible to cut down the cost of travel to go there,” he said.
Coaches
The PRTA is also looking at programmes were Barbadian coaches would travel to Africa to share their expertise, but they are also looking to setting up higher level coaching programmes here in Barbados to encourage sports tourism growth. In addition, the PRTA wants to see Barbadian players have the capacity to travel to Africa to play in pro circuits where they can make a living from road tennis.
The sport initially gained recognition in Zimbabwe after a business class saw a documentary about it on international programming. They believed the sport could be used as a vehicle to help enhance sports and business opportunities.
(SW)
