Lock, Tapfuma squeeze to finals

International Tennis Federation South/Central Junior Circuit tournament.
Lock and Tapfuma overpowered Iradukunda and Ratsimandresy 6-3, 6-4 and will meet William Bushamuka and Ismael Mzai.
They are the only Zimbabwean players who are still in the race to win a title in this junior circuit after most of the players were booted out in the early stages of the tournament.
Only Ronzai Saurombe managed to pull through to the quarter-finals in the singles matches.
Lock said he is happy with the results and they are raring to go in today’s finals.
“I think we played well, we put the pressure on. This is my first finals in doubles and I think we have a good chance but it’s going to be tough. But we are going to play our best,” said Lock.
Tapfuma said although they are favourites in tomorrow’s match they have to put up their best performance.
“We are the favourites but we have to go out there, play the game and do our best. I think we had an early break in the beginning of the second set and we felt more confident.
“We were actually disappointed with losing in the singles, so we are actually hungry to win, and the more hungry we are the less pressure we have,” added Tapfuma.
Iradukunda and Ratsimandresy were satisfied with the outcome of the match with the former applauding their opponents.
“We have played well and Tendai and Lock played better than us. They are good players, we played our best. We will try next week,” said Iradukunda.
Bushamuka and Mzai declared war in tomorrow’s finals against Lock and Tapfuma.
“It’s going to be tough. They are a good pair. There is always a weaker player in the doubles so we will go for the weaker player if it doesn’t work we will change our strategy,” said Bushamuka.
In the singles matches, Mathew Rossouw beat Francois Kellerman  6-4, 6-3 and will take on Karan Salwan in the finals. Salwan overpowered Tuki Jacobs 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(11) in a close match.
In the girls’ competition Rutuija Bhosale outclassed Nayanika Devireddy  6-2, 6-0 while Lesedi Jacobs defeated Elizabeth Kapari  in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.
Bhosale and Jacobs have a date this morning in the finals.