Cape Town tennis players Carlos Gomes and Wendy Thompson are aiming to break the Guinness World Record for the longest singles match to raise funds to revamp tennis facilities in Khayelitsha and Khayamundi.
The pair plan to start their bid, to set a new world record of 65 hours of unbroken tennis, at the Constantia Tennis Club on Friday, February 3. They aim to top the current record of 63hr 27min 40sec set by a German duo two years ago.
If all goes to plan they will set that new mark on Monday, February 6. The bid has been sanctioned by Guinness World Records, which will scrutinise every minute of their bid, allowing them five minutes per hour rest, which they plan to accumulate to allow them to catnap for 45 minutes every 12 hours.
"We are also allowed the usual ATP rules of time between matches and sets," said Gomes, a sales rep and the current chairperson of the club that will host the record attempt. He said the idea came about after he and Thompson went to Khayelitsha to play a league tennis fixture.
"The facilities are really poor, to the point that many clubs actually forfeit their matches if they are drawn to play in Khayelitsha," said Gomes. "We played our match – and lost actually. However, we had our best ever tennis experience there. There was such enthusiasm for the game and the Khayelitsha members were super friendly and hospitable."
The pair immediately started looking into ways to raise the funds needed to refurbish the courts, install partition fencing between the courts, repair the broken fencing and build a clubhouse at the Khayelitsha facility.
Through an NGO called Kingdom DNA they found out about a similar facility at Khayamundi in Stellenbosch that was in desperate need of repair, and they set their sights on raising the cash required by challenging for the arduous Guinness World Record.
The pair, both in their forties, have been training intensively for the challenge, and completed a 24-hour trial that exposed them to some of the rigours they can expect from their planned 65 hours of tennis. More information can be found at www.grassrootstennis.co.za