Greg, a former tennis volunteer had sent over lots of brand new tennis balls for the players so with all the brand new clothes and rackets we had brought to Ghana, myself and other tennis volunteers Dave Semple and Emma Hutchings organised a 3 day knockout tournament consisting of a 16 draw Mens Single Tournament, Ladies Singles and Boys and Girls under 14 contest at The National Sports College in Winneba. The Head Coach at the sports college, Noah invited players to compete with a one cedi entry fee (about 60p) while we constructed the draw and made posters to put around campus of the University of Winneba.























The best thing about Ghana is that everything is so easy to organise and you can pretty much do anything! The interest was huge and the tournament ended up being labelled ‘National’ as we had players and coming from all over Ghana to stay at the university to compete – it felt like Wimbledon – very exciting! We also had referees coming to help manage the tournament as well as recruiting children to be ball boys and ball girls and others as line judges.



Refreshments alway on hand - water boys struck gold

The tournament was the talk of campus and Coach Noah arranged for us volunteers to go and talk live on air about our intentions for helping tennis in Ghana and the tournament on Ghanaian Radio Station ‘Windy Bay FM’. It also gave me a chance to thank Taysec/Taylor Woodrow’s involvement and the other sponsors and parties who contributed.








The games begin.....





























































































































Ghanaian style of winning a tennis match....:P




















































The tournament lasted 3 days with outstanding quality tennis, a few injuries and a tennis atmosphere that I’ve never seen – when you watch a serious Ghanaian tennis match there’s a lot of banter, people running on the court and lifting the winner into the air in celebration! even Windy Bay FM came down on Finals Day and interviewed us again courtside! The players took it in turns to umpire all the different matches with eventual winners were Charles Abu for his electrofying men’s singles, Lizzy and Jeff Bagerbaseh for the 14 & Under and Anita Kodjoe was the eventual Ladies Winner– even Em had a go at competing in the Ladies Singles!


FINALS DAY - PRIZE CEREMONY
































































































































































































































































At the prize ceremony, we awarded prize money from our volunteer placement fee to the winners and runners ups aswell as spare trophies, medals and certificates that I’d brought over from the UK. The players were also given a brand new racket, and a bag each of sports clothing and other prizes. All the women and girls who competed were awarded prizes to encourage competition aswell as the quarter finalists and semi finalists. To finish we had awards for ‘Best Senior Performance’, and ‘Best Junior Performance’ of the tournament where a new Babolat tracksuit and Tennis Bag were prizes up for grabs. And then it was all over…………………. but great memories………..

Best Performance Awards....






























Best Senior Performance, Enock Godi and Best Junior Performance, Ramzy Sampane - Well done Boy! :P

The Team....


Coach Noah, Radio Windy Bay DJ with myself, Dave and Em





























Because the tournament was such a success the draws and results were sent to the International Tennis Federation (ITF) of West Africa for their records of active tournaments in West Africa.