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Allen Khumalo, Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Table Tennis Union (ZTTU) will hold the 2017 Zimbabwe Closed Championship tournament in Mutare over the weekend.

The two-day event will see the country’s top players competing in the junior and senior categories.

ZTTU president John Muringani said the competition will help players prepare for future competitions as they are also looking forward to having table tennis introduced to the National Youth Games for the first time this year.

“We will be having the competition on Saturday and Sunday where athletes from across the country will battle it out in the junior and senior categories. I believe this event will help our local players prepare themselves as table tennis will be introduced to the National Youth Games this year,” said Muringani.

Speaking on the state of table tennis in the country, Muringani said he is happy with how the sport has been developing at grassroots level over the years.

“I can safely say the sport is stable as we have vibrant developmental programmes running. From the ground we are doing well and the sport has been spreading to every part of the country. We are looking forward to doing more because we want to see the country being a power house and producing players that will bring medals in regional and international competitions,” said Muringani.

He said the association has since created structures at provincial levels whose duties are to groom players for the national team.

“In the senior categories, we have structures at provincial level which deal with grooming players for national team use. When this programme started it was concentrated at one place, but we have since decentralised that and every province is now doing it. This move will give us a platform that when we want to select a national team we just pick from those guys who have been well prepared for national duty,” he said.

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