He is in his second eye operation and still struggles to fix his interlocutor. Amani Jumatano, 72, is one of the emblematic tennis teachers of the Pereire sports complex (XVIIth). But the “black panther”, nickname of a time when he hidden around 380th place in the world, in 1982, is no longer also alert. “It is because of lighting on the field of Pereire,” he sighs.
He decided to initiate a procedure against the Paris Tennis Committee, site manager: “I file a complaint because my view was damaged by being on these poorly enlightened courts, I can no longer train in the evening now. This generates a loss of salary, but what I want is that people can play at night again, “said the one who started tennis late, at 17, in Burundi, before fleeing the war and coming to live in France where he played for Racing in the mid-1970s. There, he became the friend of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Claude Lelouch.
After having coached Ronald Agénor-who had rose under his leadership until the quarterfinals in Roland-Garros in 1989, bowing to the future winner Michael Chang-, Amani Jumatano turned to teaching for children and leisure. For ten years, he has given lessons to Pereire.
“All winter, we play with one side in the dark, and on the other one we are dazzled,” continues the coach, who compares his courses to the observation of a “solar eclipse” when he returns to the light after having dilated his pupils by hitting reverse on the dark side. Because the land is lit by a light bar installed on a tarpaulin, only on a field edge.
Amani Jumatano files a complaint for embezzlement of public funds and scam because, according to him, the Paris Tennis committee still has not improved lighting, while it has received a subsidy to carry out the work ago … six years. Despite a “favor” on the rents in return for work to be carried out, the committee, however, asked for help from the city in 2018, when it was necessary to renovate the land and redo the lighting so much criticized by the users. The quote was estimated at 230,000 euros in all, and the city gave 50,000 euros in grant. If the land has been renovated, the lighting is not better.
“Most of our members refuse to come beyond 5 p.m. in winter, they see nothing,” admits another coach. The complaint of the former double African champion decided another coach to file a complaint too. “Many fear losing their work by moaning or being annoyed by the committee then, but one of my eyes has weakened too much. It is not the cataract, I have real problems by dint of being twenty hours a week on these courts, “sighs Anatole, 56 years old.
