Later, there were some organizations teaching kids in Blantyre (where she lived) this new sport. Her brother was one of those kids. He brought her along one day when she was 12 years old. The coaches encouraged her to try it and when she did, she clearly had a gift for it. Tadala was a child prodigy, quickly rising to become the best youth female player in Malawi. Her dedication and talent took her beyond the country’s borders, where she would represent Malawi at international tournaments. In fact, in the same year she started tennis, she won the first International Tennis Federation Southern Africa Tournament and was the first Malawian to do so. Imagine that! The same year she picked up a racket for the first time, and at only 12 years old, she won an international tournament! She began to dominate both national and international tournaments. This eventually caught the eyes of a university in South Carolina, which offered her a scholarship to both play tennis and continue her education in the United States of America. She nearly became the first tennis Olympian from Malawi during the 2016 Summer Olympics!
After finishing her schooling in the USA she returned to Malawi with a dream to start a tennis organization so that other youth could have experiences like hers. With the help of some of her old teammates from college, she was able to secure funding to start this non-profit foundation to empower Malawian youth through sports and education. They started off with a lot of kids and hardly any equipment. But through hard work and perseverance, she was able to get more equipment, an office and even permission to use the parking lot at the main football stadium in the country as a makeshift tennis court. The rest is history.
