adminMidlands Sports Correspondent
THE Midlands Tennis Board (MTB) intends forming a clubs league, a move aimed at identifying and nurturing talent in the province.
MTB chairman Stanley Rudhu said the registration of clubs started on Monday. The league will start in March.“We want the province to retain its status as one of the country’s tennis hubs and one of the ways to achieve that is to form a clubs’ league, a process which we have already set in motion. As you are aware all tennis players in the country pay $10 to Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) as affiliation fees and they do that through their clubs.
“We have therefore taken this window to let the clubs register their players and in so doing the board will also charge $5 affiliation fees per player and again the players should be affiliated to the clubs.
“We hope to run this process until the end of February and in March all the registered clubs will be invited to the provincial annual general meeting where dates and other logistics on the league will be discussed,” he said.
The MTB boss said the clubs league will consist of all age-groups from the Under-10s to the open category. Zesa Kwekwe, Baseline, On-the- Move and Gweru based Topspin which is under the tutelage of veteran juniors’ tennis coach Jamiya Seremani have already registered.
Rudhu expressed confidence that more clubs would come forward and register ahead of the annual general meeting. Last year the Rudhu led board spent the better part of setting up structures at schools where monthly tournaments were held and a national tournament organised by TZ was the highlight of the year.
Online Reporter