ZIMBABWEAN professional tennis player Takanyi Garanganga will hope to draw inspiration from his maiden professional singles titles in Turkey last year, when he serves off in back-to-back ITF Futures tournaments in the Turkish city of Manisa.
DANIEL NHAKANISO
Manisa, which is situated in western Turkey, will for the next two weeks play host to two tournaments on the ITF Futures circuit, the Turkey F23 and F24 Futures tournaments.
Zimbabwe will be represented in both tournaments by Garanganga and Spain-based Davis Cup player Tinotenda Chanakira. The United States-based Garanganga won two tournaments, the Turkey Futures 35 and 36 tournaments both staged in Turkey last year, for his first career singles titles.
Garanganga’s feats in Turkey, which were followed by another win on home soil, catapulted him into the world’s top 400, on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Having enjoyed so much success on his last visit to Turkey, it didn’t come as a surprise when Garanganga cleared the first hurdle in his first round match on Monday.
The 22-year-old former African junior champion, who is the second seed, knocked out fellow Davis Cup teammate Tinotenda Chanakira in straight sets 6-2, 6-2 to progress to the next round.
Ironically, only last month, Garanganga and Chanakira were part of the Zimbabwe Davis Cup team which narrowly missed out on promotion from the 2014 Davis Cup Africa Zone Group III after they lost 2-1 to the host and favourites Egypt.
The pair of Garanganga and Chanakira are also expected to team up in the men’s doubles event in Turkey where they reached the semifinals last year before losing 4-6, 3-6 to Matteo Marfia from Italy and Marat Deviatiarov from Ukraine.
