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Sports Reporter

AS the ITF 18-and-Under South Central Circuit tournament comes to an end today at Harare Sports Club, Tennis Zimbabwe administrator Cliff Nhokwara remains optimistic of a better future for local junior players despite most of them failing to go beyond the second round of the event. The tournament is the last of three events that were running at Harare Sports Club for the past three weeks and featured participants from different countries.Zimbabwe had eight players competing in the boys’ and girls’ singles main draws for this tournament which started on Monday.

But it proved to be a huge task for most of them as they bowed out in the first and second round early this week.

The best result they got was a quarter-final by Mehluli Sibanda in the boys section.

On his way to the quarter-finals Sibanda, seeded fifth, overpowered Daniel Du Toit of South Africa 6-3, 6-0 and Tatsuki Shimamoto of Japan 6-2, 6-4 in the first and second round.

But he lost 0-6, 5-7 to third seed Bertus Kruger of South Africa on Wednesday.

Sibanda, who participated in all the three events, reached the quarter-finals of the first tournament and semi-finals for the second one.

Zimbabwe have been hosting these tournaments since 2012 in a bid to promote players’ development and Nhokwara said despite most of the players failing to go beyond the second round over the past three weeks they are confident of a better future.

“I am not so much focused on the current results but maybe on the investment we are putting for the future players who we hope to benefit from the current tournaments. It might be three to five years from now.

“The current Under-10s, Under-12s and Under14s, they are the ones who will participate and I expect them to compete favourably, not to say our current players are way below the level. On a given day we have players with potential to get to the finals.

“The likes of Mehluli, Beverly (Matsiwe) among others.

“We encourage Under-10s and Under-12s to participate, we want them to come and watch the level of play. And also that same level should be watched by our coaches to see where we are falling short and how much work needs to be put in,” said Nhokwara.

Nhokwara said most of the players still have a year or two in the juniors’ competition and are hopeful next year they will raise their game.

“The only person who competed last year is Mehluli but then he was Under-16, he is 17 now and he has another year to go. So he still has an opportunity to excel and the likes of Tadiwa Chinamo as well should they be participating. They have better chances of doing better next year.

“Most of our girls are Under-16s. We didn’t have the actual Under-18s for this tournament. There was a gap which affected us around 2008 and 2009 so that’s what is reflecting now. We had Under-18s but their level was way below expectations.

“But we have been bridging that gap with those who were two years behind and there is a point where it shows,” said Nhokwara.

The other players who took part include Mark Chigaazira, Batsirai Saurombe and Andrew Kunaka in the boys section and they lost in the opening round. In the girls section the trio of Kimberly Bhunu, Michelle Ncube and Beverly Matsiwe were eliminated in the first round while Kimberly Kaome reached the second round.