Wimbledon investigation continues,Tennis SA’s silence and brazen complicity

One year later, a 72-year-old former black SA tennis champion, Hoosen Bobat, still awaits justice from Wimbledon and the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

In 2023, the Observer, Guardian, BBC and local media publicised the racist exclusion of Bobat from the 1971 junior Wimbledon championship organised by the All England Lawn Tennis Club .

Yet, despite public pledges on racism, equity and inclusion, institutions such as the All England club and the ITF seem willing to sacrifice their professed values and appear loathe to apologise for their shameful actions.

Bobat would have become the first black South African to grace the junior Wimbledon championship.

The saga is documented in my 2023 book, Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice: The First Non-racial International Tennis Tour, 1971.

The All England club commits itself to being “a diverse and inclusive organisation which is committed to confronting and eliminating all kinds of ‘discrimination’, including race, religion/belief or gender”.

One year later, the club’s head, Sally Bolton, is yet to indicate the outcome of its investigation into Bobat’s traumatic exclusion.

The ITF’s constitution pledges that it will practice “unfair discrimination on grounds” that include “colour, race, nationality, gender and sexual orientation”.

ITF officials must “respect human rights” and “human dignity”.

Bobat was excluded from Wimbledon on the instruction of Basil Reay, the general secretary of the ITF’s predecessor.

Reay long colluded with racist tennis officials and brazenly trampled on international sport principles.

Reay told Bobat at a meeting in London in 1971 that “tomorrow I will instruct the All England Club to terminate your entry from Junior Wimbledon”.

Those words shattered Bobat’s dreams and have haunted him for 53 years.

Even today, the 72-year-old considers Reay’s words one of the “worst moments in his life” and still talks about the “incredible shock to have the singular honour” of playing at Wimbledon “snatched away”.

Jasmat Dhiraj, captain of the 1971 tour squad, recalls his fury at Bobat’s exclusion by Reay and how this haunted him as a spectator at the 1971 Wimbledon championships.

Dhiraj applied for political exile in the UK because of probable political repression if he returned to SA.

Jeremy Corbyn and Lord Peter Hain have called on the tennis authorities to apologise.

For Corbyn, a fitting apology is required “to the SA sports fraternity that flew the banner of nonracialism in sport and to Mr Bobat personally” for the two bodies’ “shameful actions”.

Hain observed that international “collusion” with apartheid in sport effectively denied black sportspeople opportunities; the All England club’s compliance with Reay’s directive and “the trauma this continues to cause Mr Bobat” requires an unreserved apology.

The club has been provided extensive empirical evidence of Bobat’s exclusion.

Fair enough, it seeks to undertake its own investigation.

A year later, it is yet to make a finding.

Of course, the club must tread carefully as it raises important issues concerning knowledge, research, evidence, sources of information and what weight is accorded to them and the like.

The ITF has not replied to communication for more than six months.

Especially scandalous is the disdain of Tennis SA (TSA), a public body meant to serve and lead the post-1994 transformation of tennis, whose president is Gavin Crookes and vice-president is Riad Davids.

TSA claims to adhere to constitutional values and to ensure that no-one is “unfairly discriminated against on the basis race, gender, sexual orientation”.

It sees transformation as “moral” and “strategic” imperatives.

Its actions belie its professed commitments.

Since June 2023, two letters were sent to TSA.

They drew attention to Bobat’s exclusion, expressed the hope that the All England club and ITF would rectify the injustice, and called on TSA to act in support of justice.

Crookes said he would address the issue but has not.

A year later, he and the TSA have not responded to the letters.

It manifests the arrogance and disdain of many public officials and public bodies that are bound to constitutional obligation.

TSA appears to have little interest in either social justice or meaningful transformation in tennis.

The one, of course, is not possible without the other.

Its silence highlights that research and action for social justice are not always well-received.

The scholar [Lesley] Le Grange notes that “blacks are often told by whites to move on, to forget about apartheid. But the pain of historical exclusion in sport needs to be shared and felt”.

Crookes and TSA possibly exemplify the idea popular in elite circles to forget apartheid and move on.

But poet William Faulkner reminds us 'the past is never dead. It’s not even past”.

Davids is a former member of the SA Council on Sport (Sacos), which popularised the slogan “no normal sport in an abnormal society” and spearheaded the boycott of apartheid sport.

Other former Sacos members also serve on the TSA board.

How do we explain their silence and complicity in the face of injustice?

Vested material interests?

Co-option as part of post-1994 elite rule?

Assimilation into a dominant white social order?

Legal and other avenues, including public mobilisation, seem needed to persuade the TSA to act and its international partners to apologise.

Saleem Badat is a former nonracial tennis player. He is research professor in the department of history at the University of the Free State. He is the immediate past vice-chancellor of Rhodes University and the former head of the policy advisory body to the minister of higher education.

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