South Africa men, Morocco women secure spots at World Team Cup finals

South Africa’s men and Morocco’s women have secured their places at the 2020 BNP Paribas World Team Cup finals in Portugal after earning victory at the regional African Qualification for the ITF’s flagship wheelchair tennis team event in Kenya.

It’s the second year in a row that South Africa have won the men’s event in Nairobi, where the victors and the host nation were among eight teams that set out in a bid to earn qualification.

Leon Els, Alwande Skhosana and Evans Maripa earned 3-0 wins over Tanzania, Cameroon and Kenya to top their round-robin pool with ease.

Meanwhile, the only blemish on Morocco’s record in the round-robin phase of the competition was defeat in the doubles rubber of their very last tie against Nigeria. However, by then the Moroccan team of Fouad Boughnim, Said Himam and Lhaj Boukartacha had long since secured the top spot in their pool and there South Africa.

Morocco are previous winners of the African Qualification, but a second set tiebreak in the opening singles rubber proved to be the closest they could get to South Africa in this year’s deciding contest, with Skhosana wrapping up a 6-2 7-6(2) victory over Boughnim. It was let to world No.30 Maripa, the highest ranked player in Nairobi, to complete South Africa’s 2-0 victory over Morocco after beating Himam 6-0 6-4.

Morocco and Kenya dominated the women’s competition to top their respective pools, Morocco dropping just one set of tennis in securing 3-0 round robin wins over Tanzania and Egypt, while Kenya also dropped just one set in beating Cameroon 3-0 and Ghana 3-0.

Having dropped just one set of tennis in Morocco’s final pool tie against Tanzania, Samira Benichi took the shorter route to success in the final against Kenya, beating Asiya Sururu 6-1 6-4. Najwa Awane, the 21-year-old world No. 70, wasted little time in putting the finishing touch to Morocco’s 2-0 victory, beating Kenyan No. 1 Jane Ndenga 6-0 6-1.

While South Africa will now have a men’s team contesting the BNP Paribas World Team Cup finals in May for the 14th time, Morocco will contest the women’s event for the second time since 2016.

The continued success and evolution of wheelchair tennis in Africa is further highlighted with 24 coaches from seven nations taking part in a wheelchair tennis coaches conference in Nairobi this week.

While men’s teams from South Africa and Chile and women’s team from Morocco and Argentina have now have now secured their places at the 2020 BNP Paribas World Team Cup finals via the African Qualification and the Americas Qualification events, the remaining Asian Qualification and European Qualification events take place in March.