Congo hosts first professional event on the ITF World Tennis Tour

Congo plays host to its first professional tennis tournament on the ITF World Tennis Tour this week at M25 Brazzaville, with French world No. 357 Calvin Hemery set to headline as top seed.

Congo-Brazzaville, a central African nation and home to 5.8 million people, hosted its maiden junior event on the ITF World Tennis Tour last month and is following suit with landmark back-to-back professional men’s tournaments on 17 – 30 July at the Pole Tennis Club.

The tournaments are part of the ITF’s ongoing commitment to work with its national associations to broaden opportunity.

As well as Congo, the 2023 ITF World Tennis Tour has also welcomed new hosts in Ethiopia (with M15 events in May), Rwanda (M25s in September) and Burundi (W25s in April), to complement existing hosts in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya and South Africa.

A total of 98 tournaments (51 men’s, 47 women’s events) have already been held in Africa this year across six different nations – Burundi, Ethiopia, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia.

The addition of Congo to that roster is an exciting prospect for the sport in the country. Tennis has been played in Congo since the mid-1930s, although the rate of the sport’s development has fluctuated in the decades since.

The last four years, however, have seen significant progress with the federation organising Davis Cup Africa Group IV events and Congo joining the ITF Junior Tennis Initiative – a key development programme.

Hugues-Henry Ngouelondele, the tournament director for last month’s junior events and the men’s events this fortnight, described the new tournaments as “a wonderful initiative which gives Congo an image of a nation looking to the future”.

Follow all the results from this week’s M25 Brazzaville event here