adminThe tournament starts on July 27 with the qualifiers set to run for two days and the main event takes off on July 29 and will end on August 3 with junior tennis players from across the world expected to take part as they seek to accumulate ranking points.
TZ administrator, Cliff Nhokwara, said they are expecting the top Under-16 and Under-18 players to take part in the tournament to accumulate points for rankings.
“I would expect that all top Under-16 and Under-18 players to obviously participate and there might be a few Under-14s.
“It’s an Open event. We would have players from India, the United States and Europe.
“Last year we hosted the same event and this year we have it again and next year we are likely to host it again,” said Nhokwara.
Zimbabwe will have an opportunity to field more players including those without points as they will get four wildcards for each category.
“It’s for the ranked players but the ones who do not have ITF points will get wildcards.
“We will have a minimum of four players in the main draw plus ranked players, the likes of Courtney Lock, Ronzai Saurombe and Taremeredzwa Mariga.
“We will have another four wildcards in the qualifiers, we usually get entries of around 100 players but it’s a draw of 48 for the boys and 32 for girls,” said Nhokwara.
The TZ administrator said the week-long tournament is an opportunity for players to get international recognition by earning ITF points.
“It’s important for the Under-16s and Under-18s to have international recognition in the form of points.
“If players can fly from India and Russia for this event it will be unfortunate for our own players who are already in Zimbabwe to fail to play and wait for other players to come and collect points.
“They have to at least participate,” said Nhokwara.
Some of the players such as Lock and Nicole Dzenga are currently in South Africa taking part in the Wanderers ITF circuit.
Online Reporter