EVEN though he did not play at the highest level, Lefa Mafane has however, competed against some of the best tennis players in the country including the likes of Ratšiu Lebesa, Bishop Mosebi and Khojane Khethisa who were in the national team.

Mafane was a regular at the National Tennis Courts from 2010 when he only played for recreation purposes.   

The former Secretary General of the Lesotho Lawn Tennis Association (LLTA) was born in 1986 and bred in Motimposo on the outskirts of Maseru. He is the second and the last born in his family.

He did his primary education at the Motimposo Primary School and passed his Standard 7 final examination in 1997. He proceeded to ‘Mabathoana High School in 1998 where he obtained his Junior Certificate (JC) in 2000 and Cambridge Overseas Secondary Certificate (COSC) in 2002.

He graduated with a Diploma in Marketing from the Lerotholi Polytechnic College (Fokothi) in 2005.

He also holds a Degree in Tourism Management from the Tshwane University of Technology obtained in 2010.

He began playing tennis at high school as a Form C learner. In those days, young players like him used wooden rackets which were relatively smaller in size.

In 2006, he led a team that was based at the Tlametlu Primary School during the national Housing and Population Census.

After he graduated from Tshwane University of Technology, Mafane worked at his family’s business in Maseru for three years until June 2013 when he started working as a lecturer in Tourism Management at the Lerotholi Polytechnic.

He was never involved in the coaching aspect of tennis as his focus was on the administrative part of it.

In June 2013, he joined the LLTA executive committee as the Secretary General.

The committee that was under the leadership of Kamohelo Hlomisi served the tennis fraternity until 2017.   

During his term in the LLTA executive committee, six tennis courts were refurbished through the International Tennis Federation (ITF) fund.

In 2015, the LLTA overhauled three courts in Maseru and three others the following year. Lesotho hosted the International Juniors Tournament in 2017 in Maseru and held several local juniors tourneys around the same time.

The committee also cleared a long standing LLTA debt to ITF of over M360 000. It also cleared the Confederation of African Tennis (CAT) debt of over M120 000 within those three years.

It further cleared a M100 000 water bill which had been outstanding for a long period of time.