Hoosen Bobat was thrilled to receive an invite to Junior Wimbledon in 1971 – what happened next still hurts, 52 years on
When a telegram arrived from the All England Lawn Tennis Club inviting Hoosen Bobat to play in the 1971 Wimbledon junior tournament, he read it more than a dozen times to be certain it was addressed to him.
The accomplishment was surreal for the then 18-year-old, hailing from a segregated Durban suburb where life was a “struggle all the time” under South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime.