The 2007 Junior Tennis Championship entered its secondday and has attracted new entrants mostly from private schools in Lusaka.
The development has forced the organisers, the Zambia Tennis Association ( ZTA) to
extend the tournament by another day to accommodate the growing number of
participants.
ZTA Secretary General Oliver Mulenga confirmed this to ZANIS in an interview adding
that the new participants were as young as eight years old.
Mulenga said the new entrants were mainly from the Lusaka International Schools and
the French Schools, respectively.
He however appealed to stakeholders and individuals to help ZTA overcome the various
challenges that it has been facing in the development of the sport.
He said one of these challenges was building popularity in the sport which was being
undermined by video technology as it was making most people to enjoy watching the
sport from their homes instead of actualising it by playing the sport.
The tournament , the first this year, is going to be monthly and targeting young
people to take keen interest in the sport.
The tournament which is being played in different age categories had attracted by
press time 50 participants.
And some players interviewed urged youths in the country to take up Tennis as it was
good for character building and self confidence.
17 -year- old Godfrey Gondwe said in his Youth Day message that youths should
seriously take up Tennis as it was good for reducing HIV/AIDS infections and other
social misfits among youths in Zambia..
Florence Bwalya on the other hand reiterated her call for Government and
stakeholders to increase funding on the sport.
She also urged Government to introduce the sport in the school curricular as part of
physical education.
