By RONALD CHAWE –
ZAMBIA’S Kalombo Mulenga settled for the bronze after his semi-final defeat to Ade Resky Dwicahyo of Azerbaijan at the just ended 2018 South Africa Badminton Open held in Cape Town.
Mulenga, who is the African junior seed-two, saw his impressive fairytale of performance come to an abrupt halt following a 2-0 loss despite putting up a brave performance as the set scores would tell 21-19, 21-17 at the hands of tournament top seed.
The 17-year-old said he was pleased with his last four finish at an event that had a lot of strong and experienced players.
“I am impressed with my result because this tournament had a lot of strong players. I played well its only that I faced a good and strong opponent but at least I have scored a lot of points that will be important in my quest to qualifying for 2020 Tokyo Olympics,” he said.
Resky Dwicahyo is the same player that beat Nigeria’s Anuoluwapo Juwon Opeyori 2-0 (21-11, 22-20) to win the Zambia Open.
Coach Juma Muwowo commended Mulenga for the performance.
“He lost in the semi finals because he played a good opponent. The good part is that the score margins were close and it really shows that the level of play for him has really improved and he should work extra hard as the road to Tokyo will be very rough,” he said.
