He gave an example of South Africa, Tunisia, and Kenya, where the growth of tennis has been slow but steady. 

Haggerty spoke during the Confederation of African Tennis annual general meeting that is underway in Nairobi. 

The conference started with the election of the continent’s new leadership, where Benin’s Jean-Claud Talon was elected president after beating Botswana’s Nelson Amanze in a 25-12 vote count. He is the brother of Benin President Patrice Guillaume Athanase Talon.

Tennis Kenya Secretary General Wanjiru Mbugua Karani has been elected the Eastern Africa Zone IV President and automatically becomes one of the Vice Presidents of the Confederation of African Tennis CAT.

 "Well, I think that's part of what we'll present in the meeting the next couple of days, and what we can see are that quite a few, there are more players from Africa that are playing professionally, they're more African junior players ranked in the ITF," says Haggerty.

"So, we see a big improvement, but it's just a start. We need to continue to have momentum. You know we are from North Africa and Tunis. We have Owens Jabour, who has been to the finals of Grand Slams and has been a top-two player in the world, so she's fantastic, and what we need to do is have that strength in all the rest of the nations within Africa." 

--ChannelAfrica--