Mawisire speaks on Zim participation in Billie Jean Cup

Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
ZIMBABWE Billie Jean King Cup captain, Fadzai Mawisire believes continued participation at the female-only tenning tournment can see more female players being actively involved in the sport beyond their university years.

Mawisire led the four-member team to a 15th place finish at the Europe/Africa Group III tourney that held in Vilnius, Lithuania last week. The team also had South Africa-based Valeria Bhunu (24) and rising teen stars, Tadiwanashe Mauchi and Tanyaradzwa Midzi who are both 15.

With few female players on the professional circuit, Zimbabwe opted for a developmental side as the country returned to the competition, formerly known as the Fed Cup, for the first time since 2008.

“To encourage more females to play at a higher level I think that by sending our team to the Billie Jean king Cup is the first step in the right direction. Now females also have something to look forward to playing even beyond the age of 18. Representing your country at such a huge stage is an honour that anyone would want to partake in, so I think that will motivate our future generation to play hoping to someday represent their nation as well,” said Mawisire.

She said the young stars exceeded her expectations and they outdid themselves. She said they played well, giving their best efforts and showed great potential to take their tennis to the highest levels.

“After many years not participating at the competition, we had no expectations except to be there and ‘show up’ and just do our best. The girls however exceeded those expectations for me and for all of us by beating some good ranked teams. Even the teams we lost to, we lost very close so it was a great effort from everybody. We are not that far from some of the best players in the world and if we continue working hard and exposing our female athletes to these kind of competitions at this level, surely we will catch up and maybe even be better, but the bottom line is that matches of that caliber have to be played more often,” said Mawisire.

Bhunu said taking part in the competition was a great experience with Mawisire doing a great job as a captain and coach.

“The preparations beforehand could have been better but once we got there, we managed to put our good foot forward with the young girls acquitting themselves well. Fadzai did a good job navigating the team and selecting players for the different matches. I think with better preparations next time we can do much better,” she said.