The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has turned down tennis ace Takanyi Garanganga’s application for a wildcard entry at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
The United States-based Davis Cup player’s name was missing from the full list of entries for the London 2012 Olympic Tennis Event which was released by the ITF yesterday.
Zimbabwe Olympic Committee chief executive officer Anna Mguni whose association was hoping the All-Africa Games gold medalist would be considered said: “Yes, our application to have Takanyi Garanganga considered for a wild card entry to the Olympics has not been successful, as he was not part of the entry list released yesterday.
According to the ITF the entry list which was released is one of the strongest, ever Olympic singles entries which made it difficult for Takanyi to be considered because of his current ranking.”
Garanganga, who is ranked 584th in the world and ninth in Africa, now shifts his attention to the 2012 Euro/Africa Zone Group Three tournament which starts in Tunisia on July 2.
He will team up with another US-based young star Benjamin Lock, Tendai Tapfuma and Mark Fynn while Freeman Nyamunokora has been named non-playing captain following the withdrawal of Genius Chidzikwe.
The tournament will see two top teams being promoted to the Euro-Africa Zone Group Two next year.
Algeria, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria and the hosts Tunisia are the countries that will battle it out with Zimbabwe in Tunisia Nyamunokora, who will link up with the participating players in Tunisia on Saturday, said he was confident the guys would do well.
