Chronicle Editor
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
THE International Tennis Federation Juniors J5 tournament that was scheduled to kick off in Bulawayo Sunday has been postponed following a blanket ban on all ITF events by the sport’s mother body due to the spread of the novel corona virus (COVID-19).
Bulawayo was set to host over 40 emerging tennis stars at the Country Club tennis courts and while Tennis Zimbabwe had opted to go ahead with the event, making preparations and registering players, a directive from ITF on Thursday saw them cancel the tourney.
TZ administrator, Cliff Nhokwara confirmed they would not be going ahead with the tournament and will wait to hear from ITF on the rescheduling of the event.
“Unfortunately, we are no longer hosting the juniors’ tourney in Bulawayo due to a directive from ITF. They ITF have cancelled all tours until 20 April.
“We are going to wait for their directive then and announce new dates for the tournament,” he said.
In a statement Thursday, ITF stated “the ITF is taking the precautionary measure to postpone all ITF-owned and sanctioned events, across the men’s and women’s ITF World Tennis Tour, the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors, the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, ITF Beach Tennis World Tour, and ITF Seniors Tour.
This will be reviewed on a weekly basis but no ITF events will take place until at least the week of Monday 20 April. We will work closely with our partners and other stakeholders, Regional and National Associations, to determine suitable alternative dates, with the goal of enabling the resumption of playing opportunities across each category as soon as the situation allows.”
“The health and safety of players, player support teams, event staff and spectators must be the priority. It is not possible to predict the length of time that tennis as a whole will be affected by COVID-19, but we will continue to monitor the situation and act accordingly.”
The ITF assignment came on the heels of an announcement by the ATP has announced a six-week suspension of the men’s professional tennis tour due to escalating health and safety issues arising from the global outbreak of COVID-19. The suspension means all ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour events scheduled up to and inclusive of the week of April 20 will not take place.
TZ is also scheduled to host other international ITF events between June and September.
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