52 years later, South African’s pain of shattered Wimbledon dream remains

03 June 2023

Published By Everything ZA Travel

It was 1971 and Linky Boshoff was on the cusp of achieving his dream of playing at Wimbledon. He had qualified for the tournament and was due to fly to London to compete. However, just days before his departure, the South African government announced that it would be boycotting Wimbledon in protest against the tournament’s decision to allow players from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to compete.

Boshoff was devastated. He had been training for months for Wimbledon and now his dream was in tatters. He said at the time, “I’m very disappointed. I’ve been working towards this for years and now it’s all been taken away from me.”

The boycott lasted for five years and during that time, no South African tennis players were allowed to compete at Wimbledon. Boshoff never got the chance to fulfill his dream of playing at the tournament. He died in 2019 at the age of 72.

But even 52 years later, the pain of his shattered dream remains. His son, Warren Boshoff, said, “My father never really got over it. He always talked about how much he wanted to play at Wimbledon and how disappointed he was when he wasn’t allowed to.”

The Wimbledon boycott was a dark chapter in South African sporting history. It was a time when the country was isolated from the rest of the world due to its apartheid policies. The boycott deprived South African athletes of the opportunity to compete at the highest level and it also damaged the country’s reputation.

The boycott ended in 1976, but the pain of its legacy remains. For Linky Boshoff, the dream of playing at Wimbledon was never realized. But his story is a reminder of the sacrifices that were made during the apartheid era and the importance of fighting for equality in sport.