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Brandon Moyo, [email protected]

AFTER three days of high quality and exhilarating tennis, one of the biggest junior tournaments in the country, the Zimbabwe Closed Championship comes to an end today at Bulawayo Athletic Club (BAC).

The tournament, which began on Monday, attracted over 100 junior players from across the country and the curtain is set to come down on what has been an interesting meet between highly rated players.

As the premier competition is underway, it came at a time when Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) proposed a transparent ranking mechanism that will see winners of major local tournaments earn up to 300 points.

The tournament is restricted to Zimbabwean players and director, Thesly Mufunda said they are expecting fireworks in today’s final with top players lined up. However, their plan was to have the finals taking place yesterday but could not manage.

It is open to all local junior players from all over Zimbabwe and takes place annually. It is for Under-12s, Under-14s, Under-16s and Under-18s, boys and girls.

“So far so good, everything has been going well, the quality of tennis displayed by the players has been good as well. It is the biggest local junior tennis tournament and it helps to see who is who in local tennis and it also helps us in selecting players that will represent Zimbabwe in international events.

“For the finals tomorrow (today), there will be interesting matches. The crowd has been good, we have received massive support so far and this tournament also leads up to the inter-provincials which get underway on Friday here at BAC as well,” said Mufunda.

This tournament, Zimbabwe Closed ranks as Category A event which according to information disclosed by the national tennis body, is one of the events that will earn the highest number of points alongside Inter-provincials, Zimbabwe Open and the Masters.

The winner of these events gets 300 points at each competition with the runner up guaranteed of 200.

Reaching the semi-finals assures one of 100 points with the third placed player accumulating 150 with the loser of that play-off receiving 50 less.

The fifth placed gets 75 and sixth 60 while seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th walk away with 50, 45, 40 and 38th respectively.

Just getting into the main draw of 32 players assures one 10 points thus the ongoing championship is important to all the players taking part. Those already ranked under the International Tennis Federation (ITF) have a higher chance of topping the tables at home. Their points tally is multiplied by 10 and the figure added to his Zimbabwe total.

Some of the players doing well in the courts in the on-going Zimbabwe Closed championship include Chengetai Masuku, Nyasha Mhlanga, Tanaka Mhlanga, Akeelah Khanye, and Simphiwe Malunguza.

Today there will be singles semi-finals and finals for both singles and doubles. – @brandon_malvin