Ghana Tennis waiting on Superman?

Ghana’s number one seed for many years now Henry Adjei-Darko, who is based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, number two seed, Salifu Mohammed and Emmanuel Mensah, all based in the United States of America have being trying their best to fly flying high the flag of Ghana in various competitions participated in, but the big question as a big tennis fan is who takes over from these stars when they are off?

Henry Adjei-Darko, who once played a vital role in bringing the country back to Zone Two from Zone Three, after exhibiting a splendid performance in Namibia, is now an elite coach at one of Atlanta’s Premier Tennis Academies, the Windward Tennis Academy.

He coaches top ranked state and national players from the Academy and plays actively in local Atlanta tennis leagues.

Salifu Mohammed is also based in the US in New York City. he, like Henry has been working as a tennis coach at the Ghatham Tennis Academy.

Emmanuel Mensah plays college tennis at, Mt. San Jacinto college in California.

The fortunes of Tennis in Ghana have been dwindling over the past few years due mostly to lack of funding and attention by officials in charge and the government.

Unlike soccer, the passion of most Ghanaian sports fans, Tennis players seeking to play or engage themselves in various competitions/tours requires a lot of financial responsibilities including hotel and airfare bills.

Most of our cherished Tennis stars like Frank Ofori, Odonkor, Gunther Darkey, Henry Adjei-Darko among others made it to the top largely by themselves.

However, they kept and keep on dropping on the ranking because of lack of funding to continue actively playing tournaments week-in and week-out.

Countries like Russia and China who took a conscious decision to invest in tennis are now reaping the benefits. Russia has over 10 female players in the top 30 of the WTA tour and china now boasts of world class tennis stars.

The big question on my mind is, we had replacements for Frank Ofori in Guther Darkey, who was in turn replaced by Henry Adjei-Darko.

Who will replace these guys when they put away their rackets for good?

It is about time the Ghana Tennis Association and the government commit more to the so-called lesser known sports.

There is too much talent hidden out there and they need to be exposed. Let us not wait for Superman because the reality is, he is not coming!!