AS FAR as inspiration goes it doesn’t get much better than being the son of South Africa’s no.2 non-white tennis player during the apartheid years. Unless, of course, your uncle was no.1.
Nitesh Soma, 34, is the son of Hira Soma and nephew of Jasmat Soma – two of the heros of “coloured” tennis in 1970s South Africa.
He learnt to play tennis with his father in Islington and is now the tennis coordinator for the popular courts at Highbury fields.
“My dad and my uncle toured with the South African coloured tennis team in the UK in 1972-3 and then again 1974-75 and it was in 1975 that they settled here. Their family lived in Pretoria near Johannesburg and they were from a very poor family.
One day a family friend, who had no idea how to play tennis, turned up with a racket and said: ‘Hey, lets learn to play!'”
“I think that’s what’s missing in British tennis and why we don’t have many top tennis players. You need that hunger, that need to get out of poverty in a way.
That’s why we need to get more kids from around here onto these courts, but the council won’t let us open them to the public in winter, or in the evenings.
People complain about the flood light being on even in the early evenings.”
Expensive
Tennis is an expensive hobby to take up. To get children on the courts, parents have to shell out for the court rent, a tennis racket, tennis balls and hours of coaching.
According to the Tennis Foundation, one in 10 London public tennis courts is in a poor state or derelict, and Islington, is one of only 12 boroughs that provide coaches.
Since many state schools do not provide tennis facilities, would-be players are left at the mercy of their councils. Despite the 2012 Olympics being heralded as a renaissance in grassroots sport, tennis courts across the borough remain expensive and elitist.
Facilities
“We have an amazing facility here, we’re really lucky, but the courts just cost too much if we want to get local kids playing tennis.
“We have to compete with Arsenal and every young kid wants to be a footballer. All they need for a kick about is a ball and some jumpers for goal posts.
“We get a lot of local kids in on initiates but then we don’t have the funding or time to keep them up with it. The only time we get lots of interest from young kids is during Wimbledon – for those two weeks everybody wants to be a tennis player.”
