NAMIBIA’s up and coming young tennis star Connor van Schalkwyk comfortably progressed to the semifinals of the ITF Southern African Regional Tennis Championships in Windhoek on Tuesday with a straight sets victory over Fenosoa Rasendra of Madagascar.
Van Schalkwyk, the fourth seed in the Boys under 16 category, brushed Rasendra aside with a 6-1, 6-2 victory to set up a semifinal meeting against the second-seeded Carl Roothman of South Africa or Ethan Sibanda who still had to play.
The fourth-seeded Van Schalkwyk didn’t have a good start, being broken on his opening serve by Rasendra, but he soon got into gear and with powerful serves and ground strokes won the first set 6-1.
In the second set he was once again broken early on, going down 2-1, but he then stepped up a gear to complete a comfortable victory.
Van Schalkwyk said he was happy with his form.
“I’m on form and I think I had one of my best matches today. My serve was strong as well as my forehand,” he said.
Van Schalkwyk, who turned 14 in November last year, is still a bit young in his age group, but he was confident of doing well.
“There are some tough players remaining in the tournament who are all older than me, but I think I have a good chance to do well,” he said.
Van Schalkwyk, who attends an ITF Tennis Academy in Morocco, had a great year in 2018 when he was ranked the top u14 player on the continent.
He won the Africa Junior Championships on clay in Algeria and came second at the Africa Junior hard court championships in South Africa, while he also won the Africa Junior Masters tournament in Tunisia.
This year it will be a bit tougher as he is competing against older boys in the u16 category, but he is determined to do well, while he has no doubts about his long term goal.
“I plan to turn professional and I want to become the top player in the world,” he said with a confident smile.
The other seeded players also all remained on track to reach the semifinals.
The top-seeded Toky Ranaivo of Madagascar beat the eighth-seeded Rohan Loubser of South Africa 6-4, 3-6, 10-5, and will now meet the third-seeded Connor Kruger of South Africa, who beat Michael Happy of Zimbabwe 6-1, 7-5.
Namibia’s other players in the Boys u16 category were not so fortunate with all being eliminated before the quarterfinal stage.
In the first round, George Louw lost 6-4, 6-3 to Jonathan Gaetsaloe of Botswana, and Brandon van der Merwe lost 6-0, 6-0 to the second-seeded Roothman, while Jaco Becker lost 6-0, 6-0 to Connor Kruger of South Africa in the second round.
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