Abstract
Book review of Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice: The first non-racial international tennis tour, 1971 by Badat, Saleem, University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 2023.
Saleem Badat’s tells the stories of Jasmat and Hiralal Dhiraj, Alwyn Solomon, Oscar Woodman, Hoosen Bobat and Cavan Bergman, who undertook apartheid South Africa’s first (and only) non-racial international tennis tour in 1971. Nicknamed the ‘Dhiraj Squad’ after Jasmat Dhiraj, arguably amongst the preeminent South African tennis players of the time, the squad represented the non-racial Southern Africa Lawn Tennis Union (SnALTU); an affiliate of the non-racial South African Council on Sport (SACOS), widely regarded as the sporting-wing of the anti-apartheid movement.