adminRossouw proved to be the best player of the two-leg tournament, which took off on 30 July as he won both the first and second leg of the competition.
The 17-year-old beat Tapfuma 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (1) in a tightly contested match.
Although he lost Tapfuma will be counted as one of the best as he is the only local player who managed to reach the finals in the singles. Most were eliminated either in the early rounds of the tournament while a few reached the quarterfinals.
Tapfuma also teamed up with Courtney Lock to win the doubles title, which they won again in the first leg.
They were awarded the match after Rossouw and Ronzai Saurombe retired as the former pulled a hamstring. Tapfuma and Lock had won the first set 6-2.
In the girls’ category second seed Lesedi Jacobs from Namibia beat top seed Rutuja Bhosale of India 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 to claim the title.
Bhosale redeemed herself in the doubles as she teamed up with Melissa Laing to beat Thabile Tshatedi and NeliseVerster 6-0, 6-2.
Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) vice president, Regis Bhunu said a lot still needs to be done if the local players are to make an impact in international tournaments.
“The performance in the second tournament was reasonable. I think it was good. It’s not always that we should win and for the boys they did quite well.
“In the girls Nicole (Dzenga) played as we expected and it was reasonable. As for the rest of the players they still need exposure. There is still need to sit down and see what else we can do.
“The first thing was to increase the number of local tournaments but we saw that there is need to do more” said Bhunu.
The TZ vice president said their aim is to have more competitive local players than relying on a few individuals.
“We are definitely going to look at matters of what else we can do. I am going to call for a meeting as an executive and talk, maybe in two weeks time.
“In the girls section there is Nicole and Thabile, after that you can see that the gap is huge. We would want people to be competitive as a huge group.
“I think we need to explore other things, methods of training and what the coaches are doing,” said Bhunu.
Online Reporter