Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/1478901
KG MONTJANE ITF World Summer 2022 23 She played her part in the first-ever wheelchair tennis match to take place on Court 1 at Wimbledon in 2021 and was the first black South African woman to play at the Championships when she made her debut there in 2019. It's fair to say Kgothatso 'KG' Montjane is no stranger to making history on the tennis court. It may surprise you then to learn that Montjane, arguably one of South Africa's most successful athletes, "never thought someday that [she] would be a tennis player." "That was never my dream," she said. "But here I am today, and I am glad I gave it a try when people said to me all those years ago you can play, because today I'm not only playing tennis but I'm learning so much about the world. "You know, coming from those rural or village areas you don't really think out of the box to be honest, you just don't know what exists out there because you don't have the resources to see the outside world, so tennis really took me out of there and I'm really appreciative of the opportunities I've been given." Describing herself as a product of the ITF and Cruyff Foundation, a partnership that this year is celebrating 20 years of working together to bring tennis to, and support the sport and players in, areas where there is not a lot of access to it, Montjane has vivid memories of the first time she was given the opportunity to pick up a racket when the project came to South Africa. "It was a great, great start for me because I am not a grassroots crafted player," she explained. "And I remember that after I picked up that racket at the age of 19, I was literally offered the opportunity to participate in one of the Cruyff Foundation development camps in Holland the very same year. "I think everyone was impressed with how I was playing, and I was invited back to the very same programme the next year and it started to become interesting for me that I could actually go out to these countries and play against other people, and I started to really feel a passion for wheelchair tennis and what it could offer."