adminEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
HARARE Metropolitan Tennis Board vice-chairman Collin Mahere says his organisation is happy to have successfully hosted the Harare Senior tournament this year. The tournament was last held in 2011 and the provincial board failed to host the event last year due to lack of sponsorship.
However, this year saw Select Health Care coming on board to sponsor the tournament to the tune of US$3 000.
The title went to Malcolm Mutungamiri of Mutare and Pauline Chawafambira was crowned champion in the women’s category.
Mahere said the event was a success but there was more they can do as a board to improve next year’s tournament.
“I would say to us, as a board, it was something good — considering that last year the event could not take off due to some challenges. The very fact that we hosted the event means it was successful.
“We learnt from this year’s experience that next year we need to prepare in time so that we have a bigger tournament,” said Mahere.
Mahere said they feel if they have more seniors’ tournaments, even if they offer very little in terms of prize money, it will help improve the level of the game among the players.
“This has also been a learning experience for us, we had US$400 (prize money) for men and US$250 (prize money) for women and people came and played.
“We are realising that we don’t have to get US$20 000 to hold events for the seniors.
“So, we will make sure that we work hard to get sponsorship to hold another tournament next year.
“With US$5 000 or US$10 000 we can hold a tournament. We received air tickets from Air Zimbabwe and it shows that sponsorship is there,” said Mahere.
He said there was need to come up with initiatives that will encourage girls to play tennis at senior level.
Only six female players turned up for the weekend’s tournament.
“When you look at juniors we have at the moment, Under-10 has more girls playing tennis than boys going right up to 12 years but as you go towards the Under-16 and Under-18 the ladies stop playing tennis.
“We have had Under-18 tournaments with six or eight girls playing in a round robin but in the same tournament you have a draw of 48 for the Under-12s.
“We probably need to develop tennis and make sure that when the girls finish school they have something to look forward to.
“Here we are looking at scholarships to universities then, probably from there, we can retain the girls in tennis,” said Mahere.
Mahere said they were also hoping to hold monthly tournaments for the juniors.
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