ITF

34 Spring 2022 ITF World a Borg-like or Becker-like boost to tennis the way it happened in Sweden and Germany. In fact, Africa's tennis infrastructure was so patchy at the time that an ITF initiative in the 1980s to take tennis to a village in Burkina Faso opted for wooden bats instead of rackets, because the complexity of bringing strings and stringers was just too great. Since then, much has changed. The biggest development has been how many countries in West Africa have benefited from the ITF Junior Tennis Initiative (JTI). This is a global initiative launched in the 1990s which gives specifically appointed JTI coordinators in developing countries subsidies to coach plus equipment to give keen youngsters the chance of a fair start in tennis. In some cases it's very modest, like in Bamako, the capital of Mali, where the JTI coordinator may have to be happy with a couple of hours coaching a week on a Wednesday afternoon, but for kids to turn up and find free rackets, balls and coaching, it's a significant start, and talented youngsters can emerge. The JTI has expanded the number of youngsters playing tennis in parts of Africa, which in turn has led to a lot more tournaments than there were in the 1980s, but perhaps inevitably the JTI has created something of a division between West and North Africa, as Ben Makhlouf explains. "In North Africa, we have far more children of working families and families from a medium-high social level, while in West Africa thanks to the JTI it's more kids from a lower social level, and they are the ones playing very well today. One of our most promising youngsters, Eliakim Coulibaly from Abijan, came from a JTI programme. He's not from a wealthy family, but we've known him since he was eight – he's now 19 and is close to the top 500. "The number of tournaments in West Africa still lags behind North Africa. Today we have around 16 events in West Africa, whereas in North Africa there are so many more, about eight junior tournaments per country per year and around 100 professional ones in Tunisia and Egypt. The social profile of North Africa is much more like Europe, and the facilities are better as many of them were built by governments or private initiatives." Ben Makhlouf doesn't buy into the view that just because you're hungry you'll make it, but he has overseen an important shift in emphasis in the ITF's development work. Since taking Right and far right: Many na ons within Africa have benefited from the ITF Junior Tennis Ini a ve, including Tunisia (pictured) Below, le to right: Egypt's Mayar Sherif, Younes el Aynaoui of Morocco and Tunisia's Ons Jabeur in ac on. All three either represent or have represented the con nent of Africa with dis nc on DEVELOPMENT

• Cover