Chronicle Editor
Nkosilathi Sibanda, [email protected]
IT has been days of hard work on the badminton courts for Thabani Mathe who is about to reach the required ranking to be eligible for the Olympics and the All-Africa Games.
He aims at attaining a top 100 world ranking and a top three rating in Africa. The continental games will be held in Accra Ghana this March, with the Olympics set for Paris, France in July.
Mathe is also eyeing to take part in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Championships from August 21 to 27 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In the past few months, the 26-year-old player has been on tours competing in many events as he bids to land the qualifying rank for the world events.
I jumped from 453 to 426 in the World ranking and I’m now 11th in the Africa rankings from 16th.
Earlier in January, Mathe moved from position 453 to 431 out of 2 000 players on the world ranking list.
He has played tournaments in Iran in recent weeks where he improved his rankings. However, the Zimbabwe badminton sensation would have climbed higher had he not missed the Azerbaijan International Challenge that ran from January 8 to 11.
He told Zimpapers Sports Hub of his latest stride towards better rating.
“After my performance in Yazd, Iran, I jumped to 426 in the world rankings and I am now at 11th position on the African rankings from 16th.
“I couldn’t compete in the Azerbaijan International Challenge owing to some immigration issues but that tournament was undoubtedly going to elevate me and make me crack the top 10 in Africa and the top 300 in the world out of over 1 800 players registered in the Badminton World Federation data base,” said Mathe.
He holds his hopes high for a maiden appearance at the Olympics.
“In terms of Olympic qualification, my hopes are still high despite the tumultuous task ahead of me to achieve the ranking points I need.
“It’s going to be a fight to the death in that regard and I hope I will have good results in the coming months.”
The player’s bid to gain qualifying rankings started with international tournaments last year when he first competed in Chengdu, China.
He said he will do a minimum of 10 tournaments before the middle of this year and another 10 thereafter.
“I have toured quite a number of countries since the start of my career and these include Uganda, Algeria and Nigeria. I have also played in the Southern African countries that include Zambia, South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius. Outside the continent, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are the only countries I have toured so far,” said Mathe. – @NkosieLegend.
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