Eight to play for New Winners tennis tournament

Tennis
EIGHT tennis players from Bulawayo left yesterday to take part in the New Winners tournament which starts at Harare Sports Club this morning.

EIGHT tennis players from Bulawayo left yesterday to take part in the New Winners tournament which starts at Harare Sports Club this morning.

FORTUNE MBELE SPORTS REPORTER

The New Winners tennis tournament is the season opener for Tennis Zimbabwe.

For the Under-18s, the Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Tennis Board (BMPTB) will be sending three girls Lorraine Ndiweni and Nicole Chigwada from the Dominican Convent. Rumbidzai Paguwa from GC Tennis Centre will be competing in the girls’ section while Hillary Ncube of GC will compete in the boys’ category.

Boys Under-10s Atupeli Phiri and Liam Chicksen from GC Tennis Centre are travelling together with Under-14 Daliso Phiri, who will take part in the boys’ competition.

Buhle Ndebele will compete in the girls’ Under-14 section. BMPTB development chairman Thesly Mufunda who is also a coach at GC said it was the first tournament outside Bulawayo for most of the players but he is hopeful of good results.

“It’s the first tournament outside Bulawayo for most of them, but we are hoping for good results especially with the Under-10 group,” Mufunda said.

The eight are also being accompanied by BMPTB secretary general Raggs Joelson, who said the board will be meeting on February 2 to review 2014 and thrash out their programmes for this year.

“We convene our first meeting on the first Monday of February to recap on 2014 where will review the African Union Sports Council Region 5 Under-20 Youth Games among other issues. We will also be mapping the way forward in terms of development programmes for 2015. We, however, start the season with the TZ New Winners tournament that starts tomorrow (today) at Harare Sports Club,” Joelson said.

Bulawayo hosted the Region 5 Under-20 Youth Games last month and Zimbabwe did relatively well in tennis which was played at Bulawayo Athletic Club.