Online Reporter
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
A TRUE passion that burns within your soul is one that can never be put out, and so was Tennis Zimbabwe life president and Mantas Tennis Academy co-founder, Ann Martin’s life.
Indeed, the game of tennis was a true passion that burnt within her and her late husband, Tom’s souls and none could ever put that out!
Ann Martin breathed her last Thursday at Frail Care Old People’s Home in Mutare, and was laid to rest on Sunday at her family’s Five Streams Farm on the outskirts of the city.
She was 85.
Mantas Tennis Academy head coach, Vincent Nyatoti, said the void Ann and Tom Martin left will be very difficult to fill.
“It is with deep sadness, and we can hardly come to terms with the death of Anne Martin. Both Ann and her beloved late husband, Tom, were the vital cogs that uplifted many people from disadvantaged communities through the game of tennis. Their invaluable support and helping hand will be very difficult to fill, and even the development of the game of tennis will be negatively affected by their departure,” said Nyatoti.
A recipient of an award from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) for developing tennis in underprivileged areas, Martin, together with her late husband, started helping kids from high-density areas of Dangamvura and Sakubva way back in 1986 to get an opportunity to play tennis.
She spearheaded a talent development programme when she was the vice president of Tennis Zimbabwe, and the goal was for every province to have an academy, of which only the Manicaland Tennis Programme, which she led, achieved the objective through the formation of Mantas Tennis academy in 2002.
Mantas Tennis Academy – a tennis talent nursery of repute that not only churned numerous stars of the game, but also changed many lives through sports based academic scholarships – was her passion.
At national scale, she will be long remembered for serving the game of tennis with a passion.
She was life president after serving as the association’s president, and at one time national development officer as well as its vice president.
In her childhood, together with her family, Ann relocated from Cape Town in 1941 to Harare when she was three-months-old.
She attended Hatfield Primary School and went to Roosevelt High School.
She worked as a bookkeeper after school.
She met Tom and got married in the 1963/4.
Tom got a job as farm manager in Middle Sabi in 1965 so they relocated. Around then, they bought their own farm in Middle Sabi in 1978.
They sold their farm and bought Five streams in 1985. They moved there up until the time of her death.
Ann was introduced to tennis by her daughter, Beverly, and that is how the tennis journey started in 1986, becoming a Manicaland Tennis Programme board member.
She knew that talent was in the high density areas so she would go to Dangamvura and Sakubva at her own time to scout for talent.
She did not wait for Manicaland Tennis Association (MTA) even though she became its chairperson.
Ann later became Zimbabwe Tennis Association (ZTA) president from 2006 to 2015, and its life president thereafter.
In 2001, she was recognised by ITF, and was given the highest honour any person in tennis can get for her involvement in development of tennis in the ghetto.
She went on to form Mantas Academy in 2002.
Many lives were touched through her initiative, passion, and being colour blind.
She touched 2 500 lives weekly through the MTA and Mantas Tennis Academy coaching clinics in schools across Manicaland.
Nationally, she had players in Kadoma, Bulawayo, and Harare, among other areas.
Moffat Mungazi