All set for ITF South Central Tourney

AT least 64 participants from around the world will compete in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Under-18 South Central that kicks off today in Bulawayo.

The tournament is set to run until Thursday and will be played at Bulawayo Country Club.

There will be no qualifiers for the event as players will jump straight into the main draw. Some of the participating players are coming from South Africa, Kenya, Israel, France, Botswana and Britain.

As part of the Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) calendar of events, the tournament is set to take place four times this year in Bulawayo with the second leg pencilled for 22-28 May. The other two events, which will be leg seven and eight will take place in November.

TZ Convener of Selectors and Bulawayo Metropolitan Tennis Board (BMTB) vice chairperson, Thessly Mufunda believes the tournament will be good for Zimbabwean youngsters, who in most cases find it difficult to travel out of the country to take part in similar competitions which provide rating points as they are ITF sanctioned. Therefore, having this tournament, and others that will follow will help them in their rankings.

“Preparations for the tournament are well on course, we are ready to go. Hosting such a tournament is an advantage to us because our players will get the chance to play in a rated competition and get the chance to improve their rankings.

“Our players don’t travel that much (to competitions out of the country) due to high costs and will be forced to choose where they will play, however, playing at home doesn’t require much,” said Mufunda.

He added that some of the junior players that are highly positioned in the world are from North Africa as they regularly host such tournaments, thus making it easy for them to get rankings faster due to playing on a weekly basis as they have the sponsorship.

Despite not partaking in a lot of international tournaments, Zimbabwe has a number of players who have been doing well and are likely to fly the country’s flag up high during the prestigious event. In the girls’ section some of the players to look out for include the number one seed in the Under-18 age group in the country, Tanyaradzwa Midzi. The other girls are Simphiwe Malunguza, and Munashe Bera, among others.

In the boys’ side, some of the Zimbabwean players to look out for include Thompson Thomu, Mengezi Sibanda, and Makanaka Hwata.
Other legs of the flagship event are set to take place in Harare and are open to players aged between 13 and 18.

The tournament comes after Bulawayo successfully hosted two other tennis championships, the Tarryn-Leigh De Souza Junior Memorial Tennis Tournament and the Bulawayo Junior Open. The two events were played at Bulawayo Athletic Club (BAC). — @brandon_malvin