With the spirit of Wimbledon finals in the air, local and International competitor, Fabian Viljoen is making waves on the International Beach Tennis scene.
Viljoen has competed in a multitude of international competitions, more recently in the Tennis South Africa (TSA) beach tennis tournaments and TSA, International beach tennis held in Centurion in Gauteng.
Viljoen and his partner, Frans Ledwaba were a team for the doubles.
Viljoen has been ranked 579 in the world which was part of the top 600 in the world and is currently ranked eight in South Africa’s International Tennis Federation ranking.
Ledwaba has reached fifth in SA and has a career ranking of 160 in the world and is from Centurion and a coach at Cornwall Hill College.
In 2005 Viljoen was asked to be the tour coach for two SA junior players in wheelchair tennis in the Netherlands, one of whom reached top status, that of KG Monjane, who is currently SA ladies wheelchair number one.
There he also met former world number one wheelchair tennis champion, Esther Verger of the Netherlands during the tournament.
He has an expressive tennis history and was the tennis coach at Astra School For the Disabled where the students were part of the International Tennis Federation in South Africa tournaments and also helped to coach the Western Province team.
His tennis has taken him to countries such as China and Germany where he filmed tennis tournaments for analysis to assist in the coaching with SA champs he was training.
In 2007, he met former Spanish world champion, David Ferrer during his visit to Johannesburg for the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and filmed his skills for analysis.
It all began at age 11 for Viljoen, who later pursued volleyball at his primary school Montagu Drive and reached Western Province status until he decided to take tennis seriously.
“I was a tennis player at the Springdale Tennis club, now known as the Mitchells Plain Tennis Club, when I was a child and I won the club championships in 2010 and 2011, as a senior.
“I then began pro tennis coaching and did courses and worked as an assistant first until I became a certified coach.
“I travelled with two junior SA wheelchair tennis team players to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and KG Montjane is still the current champion and she was on our team.
“I was also a Western Province squad coach from 2004 until 2006 for the under-14 and under-16 and 18 and I was the head and resident coach at the Pretoria Country Club in 2007 to 2010 and I was at schools such as Waterkloof Preparatory,” he said.
Viljoen said in the latest tournament he had to raise funds to participate in the tournament last month as the sport has very little support from the government.
Viljoen also taught children in his community how to play tennis before the pandemic.
“I was lucky to do fundraising and previously I received funding, but it can be very difficult because you need to pay for all the fees and transportation yourself.
“I decided to give back to the community, before there was a hard lockdown, I put up a net on the field and the community children joined for lessons,” he said.
Viljoen now runs beach tennis tournaments at Clifton Fourth beach.
His former coach, Andrew Japhta at the Mitchells Plain Tennis Club said he will always remember Viljoen.
“He was a star player from young and started doing coaching for our squads,” he said.
Ledwaba said they were going to continue to compete in the ITF and TSA and would not give up on improving their skills.
“I started playing at age six and I realised later on it is not that easy to go pro.
“I am a coach now at Cornwall Hill College.
“I am feeling good but I am also eager to get back to training to see how we can compete against those we lost against,” he said.