adminEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Squash Association are set to shift their focus to the World Junior Cup after the All-Africa Juniors tournament that was scheduled for Egypt was cancelled.The continental competition was set to run from April 23 to 28 with African countries taking part but it has been cancelled and ZSA public relations officer, Mashumba Mukumba, said they are now focusing on the World Junior Cup.
The event is expected to be held from August 4 to 10 for the individuals and the team event will run from August 11 to 21.
“We had the All-Africa tournament that was supposed to take place from April 23 to 28 in Egypt but it was cancelled because of security reasons. We now have the junior men’s worlds in August. Basically that is the event we are focusing on because by the time we get to August squash will be fading.
“We did compete in the event before and last year we came number 20 out of 24 countries. This year we hope to do a little bit better than last year I presume because they (the players) have also gained some experience. We intend to send a team of four for the team event and more (players) will be in the individuals,” said Mukumba.
Mukumba said they will also be sending their players for the South African Country Districts and Inter-provincial tournaments.
“We have the country districts festival in May in Bloemfontein. After the country districts there is going to be the inter-provincials in different venues. So we are now preparing for the country festival, we have done the selection already and everything is already in progress for all juniors.
We are also going for the inter-provincials which caters for the Under-11s up to Under-19s in June.
“For the country festivals we will send four players and for the IPT A section we will send five players and six in the B section,” said Mukumba.
Mukumba, however, appealed to the corporate world and well-wishers to assist the players because most of them are facing financial challenges and they have to cater for the trips on their own.
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