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Outlook: The barefoot tennis player who turned pro

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Sam Jalloh

23/12/2019 GMT

The barefoot tennis player who turned pro

BBC World Service - Outlook, The barefoot tennis player who turned pro

Sam Jalloh’s war-torn journey to becoming a top tennis player in Sierra Leone

Sam Jalloh’s war-torn journey to becoming a top tennis player in Sierra Leone and fulfilling his teenage dream of wearing the national team tracksuit.

As a boy growing up in Freetown, Sam Jalloh became enamoured with the Sierra Leone national tracksuit. He wasn't particularly fashion conscious, but he was sporty, and he discovered that the only way he'd get one of those tracksuits was by learning to play tennis. Sam didn't have shoes or equipment, so he played barefoot and fashioned a racquet out of plywood. Local coaches spotted Sam's talent for tennis, but these were perilous times in Sierra Leone. The country was in the middle of a civil war, and before Sam could get his tracksuit, he found himself in the crosshairs of the conflict. Sam's written book called How Tennis Saved My Life.
 
Wilhelm Verwoerd has spent most of his life wrestling with his surname and what it represents. His grandfather, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, is widely known as the "architect of apartheid" in South Africa because of the brutal policies he introduced as a government minister and then prime minister of the country in the 1950s and 1960s. But Wilhelm turned his back on his family's apartheid politics and is committed to tearing down its racist legacy.

Presenter: Andile Masuku

Picture: Sam Jalloh
Credit: Courtesy Sam Jalloh

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