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Ricky Zililo Senior Sports Reporter
REGISTRATION for Bulawayo’s twin juniors tennis tournaments, the Bulawayo Open and the Tarryn-Leigh De Souza Memorial competitions, set for April have opened.
The Bulawayo Open will run from April 3-5, while the Tarryn-Leigh De Souza Memorial is from April 6-8.
Bulawayo Metropolitan Tennis Association chairman Zeb Mawisire said all city schools were already in possession of registration forms for the tournaments.
“The tournaments are open for Under-10, Under-14, Under-16 and Under-18 age groups. The Bulawayo Athletic Club (BAC) will be our command centre, with Country Club, Whitestone and Girls College courts also being used as venues. Registration has started and will remain open until the eve of the Bulawayo Open. We expect all the country’s provinces to send representatives because these competitions are also used for ranking purposes,” said Mawisire.
The Tarryn-Leigh De Souza Memorial tournament is in commemoration of the life of De Souza, one of the best players to emerge from Bulawayo, who died of heart failure in 2009.
De Souza represented Matabeleland and Zimbabwe in a number of tournaments at the age of 18 as the country’s third ranked player.
She won a scholarship to play and study at Oklahoma Christian University in the US in 2003. At the time of her death, De Souza had graduated with a sporting degree.
Tennis Zimbabwe turned the Tarryn-Leigh De Souza Memorial tournament into a national competition to be used for player rankings in 2010.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter