Online Reporter
Tendai Chara, Zimpapers Sports Hub
GLORY Gijima knows the climb ahead won’t be easy. The acting Tennis Zimbabwe president is staring at one of the federation’s toughest rebuilding phases after the Davis Cup team’s painful relegation to Africa Group IV.
In August, Zimbabwe endured its worst Davis Cup showing in recent memory. Playing at home at Harare Sports Club, the team crumbled to four straight defeats against Senegal, Algeria, Nigeria and Namibia.
Not only did Zimbabwe lose every match 3–0, they also failed to win a single set throughout the tournament.
The squad, made up of young players Ronan Mtisi, Ethan Sibanda and Mehluli Sibanda, struggled without their top man Benjamin Lock, who missed the event due to injury. The result was a humiliating slide into Group IV, a division the country last featured in more than fifteen years ago.
Now, Zimbabwe will rub shoulders with Africa’s lesser known tennis nations Congo, Angola, Ghana and Kenya. It’s a steep fall for a country that once boasted world ranked stars and hosted packed Davis Cup ties.
Gijima doesn’t sugar-coat the situation. “The route to promotion will be long and hard. We need about five years to address the grey areas that will result in our comeback,” she said.
In response, Tennis Zimbabwe has re-evaluated its entire strategy. Gijima believes the turnaround must start from the ground up. “The Junior Tennis Initiative, which introduces tennis at grassroots level in schools and universities, will do the trick for us. In the past, we were failing to consistently feed the Davis Cup team from the grassroots,” she explained.
Still, she admits the transformation won’t happen overnight. In the meantime, efforts are being made to lure players studying and competing abroad back into the national fold. “We are reaching out to players in American and Australian colleges so that we get them to be interested in representing the country.
This strategy is paying dividends in other sporting disciplines,” she said.
Among the diaspora talent are promising players such as Shane Tapera, Zamani Moyo and Tinaye Badza.
But Gijima concedes that the pool of elite level players remains thin.
“Save for Benjamin Lock, we are not having as many players as we would want who are active on the competitive international circuit,” she noted.
“There is need for the country to invest in elite tennis.”
That call for investment comes as the association tries to move past a turbulent chapter marked by infighting and corruption allegations. In July, former Tennis Zimbabwe president Walter Jera was removed from office, a decision later endorsed by the Sports and Recreation Commission. Jera, however, has launched legal proceedings against the association, while the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating some officials over alleged financial misconduct.
Gijima, seeking to steady the ship, chose to focus on unity. “I would not like to dwell much on the negative things that happened in the past. All I can say is that we have made significant efforts to bring sanity and peace. We are definitely on the right path,” she said. She declined to comment on the accusations raised by Jera, saying, “I cannot comment on allegations that were not proven to be fact.”
For now, Gijima’s biggest challenge is not the politics but the sport itself, rebuilding belief in a team that has fallen far from its proud past. And while the climb back to Group III may take years, she insists the journey has already begun.
