McDan rewards Tennis coaches

Dr. Dan Mckorley has presented two tennis coaches Noah Bukari Bagerbaseh and Francis Asare Manu of the St Francis Foundation (Ashaiman) with $1,000 each at a ceremony at his Shiashie office.

He also presented scholarships worth GHC 15,500 to the winners and semi-finalists of the last Saturday's McDan Junior Open Championship.

Dr. Daniel McKorley CEO of McDan Group has announced a innovative tennis development project which he says will result in a Ghanaian making an appearance at the finals of any of the four Grand Slam competitions and the Olympic Games.

According to the tennis enthusiast and sponsor, the venture will involve his outfit sponsoring eight talented young tennis players to pursue their dreams of becoming tennis world beaters.

He said the players will be selected from the just-ended McDan Junior Open Championship and will be sent to Morocco for an intensive training camp at the International Tennis Federation (ITF)/CAT High Performance Tennis Centre in Casablanca, Morocco.

"The plan I have for these kids is that they are going to Morocco to play competitive tennis and they will come back," Dr McKorley said.

"We are selecting eight of these kids, their school fees - fully paid - put them in Winneba, they are going to train there day and night. They will stay with coach Noah Bagerbaseh and after that, we are going to send them to the ITF centre in Morocco and they will stay in Morocco for another two years.

"After that and depending on their performance in Morocco we will fly them to the United States of America. All this depends on your performance and discipline, it is not automatic, if you are not doing well but the sky is the limit".

Isaac Duah, President of the Ghana Tennis Federation guaranteed his support for the project, saying it will return the Golden Rackets (national tennis team) to the heights of the Davis Cup competition.

"You are always full of surprises for Ghana tennis, last time you surprised us with a bus, then an increase in prize money and this is what the GTF has always looked for, catching them young.

"We have good talents at U-12 and U-14, so to select them and camp them in Winneba is the best because they will play tennis in the morning, come back home and play tennis again and the sky will be the limit", he expressed