Of the total budget, the BTA president Oaitse Thipe said they will set aside P300, 000 for prize money.
The tournament is expected to draw 150 local and international players from across Southern Africa. Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Eswatini, Zambia, and Zimbabwe will all be represented. There are five categories; the men's and women's singles, doubles for both men and women and the mixed doubles.
The tournament will also have a competition for senior players, both men and women, who are over 40-years-old. Through the Botswana Open, the BTA is pushing to host an internationally recognised event that will aid local players in improving their rankings. Thipe is confident that their efforts to raise the funds required to organise the competition will bear fruit.
"Our budget is well aligned with our ambitious plan of upgrading the Botswana Open to an ITF 15k tournament, which comes with international ranking points. We are, therefore, looking at prize money totalling P300, 000 for both men's and women's events. Our total budget for the event is P450, 000.
We were intentional in ensuring that the bulk of the funds go towards the prize money for the players' benefit," he said. "In pursuit of the above, we have approached a good number of businesses in the telecommunications, insurance, banking and mining sectors to partner with us in hosting the event. At the moment, we have not received any offers for partnerships or sponsorship, but we continue to engage with different stakeholders," Thipe added. Although optimistic, the tennis official said if funds are not forthcoming, they will revise the budget. Despite the focus on securing the funds, Thipe said other logistics are well on course. "Other preparations are progressing well. We continue to market the event via different platforms and we're reaching out to our neighbouring countries to register their players," he said.
The tournament will see Botswana showcase its promising young talent led by Denzel Seetso, Mark Nawa, Tshepo Mosarwa, Batshumi Marobela, Kao Lenkopane, Tsholo Tsiang, Thato Holmes, Ekua Refilwe Youri, and Chelsea Chakanyuka. The Open will provide the local players with a perfect platform to ramp up preparations for the 2024 Davis Cup Africa Group V competition, which takes place in Gaborone from July 15-20. Last month, the BTA announced that the sport's world governing body, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) had awarded Botswana the right to host the prestigious event. The 15 countries in Group V comprise Botswana, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Congo, Gabon, Seychelles, Mauritania, Lesotho, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, and Libya.
