Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
BULAWAYO Metropolitan Province Tennis Board (BMPTB) chairman Tarwira Chikunichikwa has appealed for financial assistance from the corporate world to refurbish Bulawayo Athletics Club (BAC) courts in preparation for the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Under-18 tournament next year.
The ITF Under-18 tournament is slated for March 2018 and Chikunichikwa said they had lined up a number of fundraising projects to raise the estimated $100 000 required for the refurbishment.
“We had a fundraising sports gala this past weekend. The turnout was good, although we did not get the numbers that we expected. We will continue holding fundraising events as we want our facilities to meet the required standards so that we can host more international tournaments,” said Chikunichikwa.
“Tournaments of this magnitude are very critical in the development of the game, not only in the region, but in the country as a whole. Our hope is that we manage to build new tennis courts and refurbish the old ones to enable us to host the ITF event. This requires us to dig deep into our pockets and we cannot achieve this alone hence our appeal to the corporate world to help us,” he said.
The ITF tournament is an international world rankings event and this will be the first time Bulawayo is hosting such an event.
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