By YVONNE  SAKALA –
ZAMBIA Tennis Association (ZTA) president, Francis Musonda will this morning be among 30 other players who will compete in the Hotel Intercontinental Open Veterans’ Championship in Lusaka.
Tournament organiser, Teddy Chambisha said in an interview yesterday that the response from the veteran tennis players was overwhelming and that the competition had attracted participation from both northern and southern regions.
He said among the notable players will be Musonda, Willy Mungalu, Nicholas Chizyuka, who is the tournament sponsor, Cryford Phiri, Noble Gondwe and Isaac Tembo, the ZTA vice-president (South).
Chambisha said the Hotel-Intercontinental Open Tournament would give an opportunity for young and old tennis players to interact and promote the growth of tennis.
“The two-day tournament is open to players who are 40 years old and above and will be hosted in the Hotel’s tennis courts, so far, 30 players have confirmed participation and we are expecting more entries though” Chambisha said.
He said all was set for the competition and that the hotel was ready to give the players a treat.
Chambisha said tennis was slowly, but steadily making strides in the country and that it was time people started taking up the sport professionally.
“We need more people to take up tennis as a sport professionally, players like Edgar Kazembe have led the way but we need more people to start playing professional tennis,” he said.
He paid special tribute to the tournament main sponsor, Chizyuka of Circle Transtra International Limited for coming on board to support the competition and called on other corporate entities to also come up.