Durban — Danville Park Girls’ High School duo Tessa Heine and Jessica Peters aced their way to the eThekwini under-19 selection.
The eThekwini team will take part in inter-district trials on Friday at the Westridge Park Tennis Stadium in Durban.
Grade 12 pupil Tessa Heine said that in spite of it not being her first time being selected provincially, she was excited about another selection. This is the fourth year in succession she has made the provincial team. Her first selection came in 2020.
Tessa, 17, said: “I have always loved playing a competitive level of tennis and so finding out I made the eThekwini team was amazing. Under19 is a difficult team to make because it is such a big group of players usually.”
Tessa said that her tennis journey began in 2012 at the age of seven, when she fell in love with the game.
She added that she would love to play tennis professionally and although she acknowledged the difficulty of the goal, she said she had the will to achieve it. Tessa is the school’s tennis captain.
Danville Park Girls’ first-team tennis player and Grade 11 pupil Jessica Peters expressed her delight in making the provincial team for the first time.
Jessica, 16, said: “When I made the under-19 eThekwini tennis team, I finally felt like all the hard work over the past 10 years is finally starting to pay off.”
Jessica said that she began playing tennis at the age of six and initially she was just doing it at school for fun.
“I eventually started private coaching as I continued to enjoy it. My nana, Yvonne Wilkinson, who was a tennis player in the 1950s and 1960s and had played in Wimbledon, inspired me to continue playing tennis,” said Jessica.
She said last year, she went to Wimbledon and drew inspiration from watching her two favourite players, Rafael Nadal and Cori Gauff.
Danville Park Girls’ High tennis coach Munashe Teburu said as a coach, he was proud of the two.
“What has impressed me is their maturity, ability to listen and take criticism as it is and use it to improve.”
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