Ellina Mhlanga Harare Bureau
AFTER successfully staging the Davis Cup Euro-Africa Group II relegation play-off tie against Moldova at Harare Sports Cub, Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) have another busy schedule next month when they host three International Tennis Federation South/Central circuits.

The tournaments, catering for the 18-and-Under players, will get underway early next month with the first competition running from August 3 to August 8. The second event will run from August 10 to 17 and the last tournament is scheduled for August 17 to 22.

Players from across the globe are expected to take part in the boys and girls sections.

Zimbabwe have been hosting the tournaments since 2012 and TZ administrator, Cliff Nhokwara, said they are a platform for international exposure for local athletes. “Most of our Under-14, 16 and 18 players have entered for the events. We’ve had this since 2012. It’s a permanent fixture on the ITF calendar and for the time being we will continue hosting them.

“In 2012 when we started hosting the tournaments, we had one grade five and one grade four tournament.

“The following year they were both grade four events and last year we had two grade four and one grade three tournaments. It’s going to be same again this year, we’ll have two grade four and one grade three events.

“We’re giving our players the platform to make decisions whether they want to pursue tennis professionally or they just want it to take them to University. It’s an opportunity for the youngsters to learn. It’ll attract players from all over the world,” said Nhokwara.

Nhokwara said all is in place for the events and noted that they have received more entries than they expected.

“We’re ready to go. We’re over-subscribed, for the girls we’ve a draw of 32 and we already have more than that. The same applies for the boys where we’ve a draw of 48 and we’ve more than that. That’s why we’re holding the qualifiers to eliminate the excess,” Nhokwara said.

Zimbabwe hosted three ITF men’s Futures events between June and early this month sponsored by Old Mutual and Nhokwara said they hope the tournaments will inspire the up-and-coming young players.

“Obviously the idea is, by holding these events, the benefits cascade downwards to grassroots and to our schools for the young players to learn and develop their tennis career. That’s the most we can do in terms of bringing international exposure, we hope our kids are learning.

“Hopefully the numbers will increase, by hosting the Davis Cup we also hope awareness is growing and the numbers of players as well,” said Nhokwara.

Some of the players expected to compete at the forthcoming ITF events are Tadiwa Chinamo, Mehluli Sibanda, Rufaro Chirewa and Zahra Finnigan.

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