Story by Lawrence Trusida, Sports Editor
TENNIS Zimbabwe has set its sights on building for the future after blending youth and experience in the Davis Cup team for the World Group Two play-off against Hong Kong on the 3rd and 4th of February.
The Davis Cup is regarded as the World Cup of Tennis and Zimbabwe started participating in this prestigious tournament back in 1963.
At its peak, Zimbabwe reached the quarterfinals of the Elite World Group in 1998.
The country has, however, fallen to Group Two.
Benjamin Lock, his brother Courtney together with youngsters Benedict Badza and Tatenda Mtetwa will represent Zimbabwe in their latest Davis Cup assignment set for Hong Kong on the 3rd and 4th of February.
The focus is however not immediate results with Tennis Zimbabwe laying out a long-term plan to get Zimbabwe back to the top.
“Our strategic plan is to have long-term player development and have understudies that’s why you see we have Benedict Badza and Tatenda Mtetwa who are learning from Benjamin Lock and we hope this can be the best training and pass it on to the next generation. We slept on duty during the glory days but now we have a plan to bring the sport back to where it was,” said Tennis Zimbabwe general manager, Kudakwashe Mukurumbira
The association is confident that Zimbabwe will move to Group One in the next five years.
“We need to be realistic with ourselves, it’s tough moving up and we are not yet ready, we are hoping that in five years we will be strong enough to move to Group One and stay there as we envisage to go up after that,” said Tennis Zimbabwe president, Walter Jera.
Zimbabwe also integrated youngsters in their previous Davis Cup assignments against El Salvador and Belarus.
All the tennis players and non-playing captain Takanyi Garan’anga are based in the United States of America and are already in Hong Kong as they prepare for the tie.
