adminEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE ITF South Central African Junior Circuit tournament second leg continued yesterday with the pair of Courtney Lock and Lloyd Harris booking their place in the doubles finals after beating Alwyn Mushonga and Brandon Laubser at Harare Sports Club yesterday. Lock and his South African partner Harris are the top seeds and they dismissed Mushonga and Laubser 6-4, 6-4 to cruise today’s finals.
The duo is confident of retaining their title as Lock said they have been training well for their matches.
They will fight for honours against Aziz Dougaz of Tunisia and Gueninle Ouattara who beat Lumeta Chisomo and Ismael Mzai 6-4, 7-4(5) in the other semi-final.
“From the beginning it was always going to be tough, they are both very good players. I think we played very well today (yesterday) and we have been playing well the whole week.
“I am feeling very confident going into the finals tomorrow (today), we are both serving well and we are training well. I am hoping to go and take the title again.
“I lost early in the singles but I am trying to prove myself in the doubles,” said Lock. His partner, Harris shared the same sentiments as he said they have made a good combination with Lock for this tournament.
“It’s basically the first time we are playing together from last week and we have been doing really well.
“It’s been really tough, last week all our matches were tough and this week we had a tough round, I think it’s really good level competition.
“I think what we need is just to be confident because we have played a lot of matches in the past two weeks. I think there is a lot of confidence going into the finals and I think we can pull it off,” said Harris.
The boys singles semi-finals will see Guy Orly Iradukunda taking on Harris while Dougaz clash with Laubser.
In the girls section, Nicole Dzenga had a good day on the court as she booked her place in the singles semi-finals and doubles finals as well.
Dzenga first overpowered India’s Ialita Devarakonda in straight sets 6-1, 6-2 and she will take on second seed Dhruthi Venugopal today.
Venugopal beat Huibre-Mare Botes of South Africa 6-2, 6-4.
The other match will feature top seed Theresa Van Zyl, who is Dzenga’s doubles partner, and Tessah Andrianjafitrimo from France, who is seeded third.
Dzenga and Van Zyl went on to beat the pair of Amelie Boy and Emmanuelle De Beer 6-7(5), 6-2, 10-3 in the doubles semi-finals to progress to the finals.
They will take on Andrianjafitriomo and Rikeetha Pereira who beat the Botes twin sisters — Huibre-Mare and Louise-Mare 6-2, 6-3.
Dzenga was impressed with her performance yesterday.
“Well I am just happy to even have gotten this far, so tomorrow (today) I just want to enjoy the way I played no matter the result,” said Dzenga.
Online Reporter