Tennis Zimbabwe rules warm-up tourney

30 to August 4 and the second leg is scheduled for August 6 to 11 at the same venue.
Tennis Zimbabwe administrator, Cliff Nhokwara, had earlier indicated that they would be staging a warm-up tournament a week before the event to prepare their players.
But most of the players opted to participate in various tournaments that are being held in South Africa as part of their preparations.
Nhokwara said they were now focussing on the logistics and facilities to ensure that everything would be in place when the tournament begins.
“The only preparations we are doing is the maintenance of the facilities.
“Right now we are working on the courts, we have redone the lining and fence. We are expecting our consignment of balls this week. Our officiating team is in place,” Nhokwara said.
Some of the players that went to South Africa are Thabile Tshatedi, Takudzwa Muswere and Alwyn Mushonga.
Nhokwara, however, believes there is still more that needs to be done if the players are to match the standard of their counterparts.
“I really don’t believe it’s enough but then it comes back to our culture, as long as school is in session we don’t like our kids to go for tennis, in fact sport in general.
“If we look at our draw we have kids coming from across the globe from countries such as India, Australia, Czech Republic and Italy and those kids are travelling day in day out whilst attending their classes.
“Something has to be done,” said Nhokwara.
Only two players in the boys category – Courtney Lock and Tendai Tapfuma – will compete in the main draw while the rest will  have to go through the qualifiers and the alternates after they failed to acquire the required points.