Promising junior tennis player Courtney Lock seems to have struck the right cord just at the right time ahead of the first of the back-to-back ITF South/Central African Junior U-18 Circuit tournaments which serves off at Harare Sports Club on Monday.
Courtney, who is based at the prestigious ITF tennis centre in Tshwane, lived up to expectations by reaching the quarter-finals of the Gauteng North Jnr.
Courtney is the younger brother to US-based Zimbabwe Davis Cup player Benjamin Lock. In the opening round, Courtney beat South African, Jan-Willem Kleynhans 6-3, 6-3, before dispatching another South African Trent Botha 7-6(2), 4-6, 7-6(3) in the second round.
He was, however, booted out in the quarterfinals after falling to the second seeded Namibian Tuki Jacobs 6-4, 6-4.
Courtneys performance in South Africa should boost his confidence ahead of the first back-to-back tournaments which will run from Monday to next Saturday.
Tennis Zimbabwe administrator, Cliff Nhokwara, who is also one of the organisers tipped Courtney together and Tendai Tapfuma and Ronzai Saurombe to shine at next weeks tourney.
Its nice that Courtney is playing well. He together with Tendai Tapfuma and Ronzai Saurombe are our top players going into the tournament and we expect them to do well, he said.
Nhokwara said foreign players had already started trickling into the country this week and more were expected today ahead of the draws.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Most of the foreign players started arriving early this week and almost all players should be in the country by tomorrow (today). The draw for the qualifying stages, for the lowly ranked players will take place tomorrow (today) while the main draw will be conducted on late on Sunday (tomorrow), said Nhokwara.
A total of 150 players from both Africa and abroad are expected to grace the local courts at Harare Sports Club. Zimbabwe will field 32 players, but most of them will go through the qualifying draw because of their low rankings.
