Dzuwa to lead junior tennis team for SA tourney

By The Standard | Feb. 3, 2013

FORMER Zimbabwe Davis Cup player Martin Dzuwa will be the country’s travelling coach at the Zone Six International Tennis Federation (ITF) CAT African Closed Junior Championship to be held in South Africa.

BY ALBERT MARUFU

The tournament, which runs from February 18-23, would be held at University of Potchefstroom.

Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) administrator Cliff Nhokwara said because of the school calendar, the eight players would work with their respective coaches at their bases and only camp during the final week.

“We do not want to disturb the kids who are currently in school. If we are to bring a kid from Mutare to Harare for the games preparations, that child will miss classes.

“They will work with their coaches at their respective bases and only work with the travelling coach Martin Dzuwa a week before travelling to South Africa. The kids are going to lose another week during the tournament so we have to minimise the number of days they will be out of school,” said Nhokwara.

Dzuwa said he expected better results from the current generation of players as they have been playing well in the tournaments they took part in so far.

“It is a balanced team, but I feel sorry for locally-based players who are not involved in competitions. It is good that some of them are involved in serious competitions. The kids have been playing well in their respective tournaments. We have players such as Valeria Bhunu who have been playing in Futures tournaments,” said Dzuwa.

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“The boys’ team has (Alwin) Mushonga and Ronzai Saurombe who are very experienced.”

Zimbabwe’s team comprises five girls — Bhunhu, Nicole Dzenga, Latif Yasim, Thabile Tshatedi and Zahara Finnigan. The boys team comprises Courtney Locke and Ronzai Saurombe, with the three wild cards slots being announced soon.

The finals of the ITF/AJC would be held in Nairobi, Kenya in April this year.