Hero of the day
International Club honour for EP stalwart
Port Elizabeth’s Piet Snyman has been honoured with international recognition after being made an honorary member of the International Tennis Club.
ALIFETIME of involvement in the sport of tennis has seen Port Elizabeth’s Piet Snyman being honoured with international recognition by being made an honorary member of the International Tennis Club. As a player, coach and administrator, Snyman has been heavily involved in tennis for most of his 72 years, and this has not changed seven years after he retired from a teaching career at Alexander Road High School (1970 to 2008).
While his active participation in the sport he loves has been reduced, Snyman can still be seen resurfacing courts wherever required as part of a contract he has with the company Barretts.
The International Tennis Club was set up many years ago to recognise those who have made a major contribution to the game in various aspects.
Each country has its own club to honour its deserving recipients.
Already a member of the club, Snyman’s status has been elevated to that of an honorary member, which goes to a select few.
“The International Club is a worldwide club, with each country having its own colours and from time to time you play against teams from other countries,” Snyman said.
“At first it was limited to men, but about six years ago they allowed women to also belong to the club and Leonie Grondel [from Border] is the South African secretary.
“Membership of the club is done only by invitation. The late Niel Bouwer put my name forward years ago. You are nominated with a motivation of what you have done for tennis.
“Other people with EP connections who belong to this club are Louis Nel, Sandra Reynolds [formerly Price], Billy Kehl and Di Gascoyne. Also, the late Niel Bouwer and Paul Morgan-Smith, both former EP Tennis presidents, were members.”
Snyman said he was overwhelmed by his nomination as an honorary member.
“It means a lot to me and I am very appreciative,” he said.
“To me it is the cherry on the top after all these years; it is some recognition.”
From the start, there seemed little doubt that sport, particularly tennis, would play a massive role in Snyman’s life. He won the PE and District men’s singles title at the age of 15 in 1958 – remarkably, his son Vaughan would emulate that effort in the 1980s at the same age – and represented the SA junior team at the Orange Bowl in Florida.
When Snyman went to NMMU (then UPE) in the 1960s he was coerced by the EP president, the redoubtable Marchant Davies, to stand for the EP committee. Initially he was reluctant to take on the assignment.
“I said to Mr Davies that I had too much on my plate and was too busy to serve on the committee,” Snyman recalled. “And then Mr Davies said to me ‘Piet my boy, a busy man has always got time’ and I was elected to the committee, which I served on for 37 years.”
Snyman succeeded Morgan-Smith as president of EP Tennis and was heavily involved in unifying the sport at a provincial level in the early 90s.
His marriage to Barbara only intensified their sporting interests. She was no mean sports player herself, playing and coaching hockey at a provincial level.
They produced children Vaughan and Suegnet, fine tennis players in their own right, with Vaughan eventually progressing to the professional circuit.
He now lives and coaches fulltime at an academy in the US, while Suegnet has settled with her German husband in Germany.
Snyman also played EP squash and represented Westview at first league level for many years before hip replacements meant having to curtail his sporting activities.
He also made his mark as a top-class tennis coach, a profession he followed for about 40 years, and received the Master Coach award, at the time the top award for a South African coach.
“Even though we were very busy, I thoroughly enjoyed it because tennis has been my life, while squash has also been good to me,” Snyman said.
“You look back and you don’t know how you managed everything you did – I was on 11 committees at one time, and on a Saturday morning I used to coach from 7.30am to 1pm, when I would have a quick shower and eat a sandwich on the way to my club for league tennis.
“We would play all afternoon and then sometimes there would be squash on the Sunday, as well as coaching rugby and tennis during the week at Alexander Road, where I also introduced the game of squash.
“We just had the grace to see everything through and those were amazing times.”
Snyman’s love for the sport remains undiminished and the International Tennis Club honorary award could surely not have been more justified.