By GRACE CHAILE  –
FOUR Zambian players yesterday left for Pretoria to compete in the South African International Championship that starts today and ends on Friday.
Zambia will be represented by female top seed Ogar Siamupangile and her sister Evelyn, Lucricia Chisanga and Chongo Mulenga at the tournament which will see the players fighting for points towards qualification to the Rio 2016 Olympics Games.
With only six slots allocated to Africa, Ogar is targeting reaching the finals to keep alive hopes of qualifying for the Olympic Games to be held in Brazil.
“My target is to reach the finals of the tournament and it was unfortunate that I couldn’t go further than the semi-final during the Zambia International Championship. But I am confident that with the experience gained, I will reach the finals,” she said.
Mulenga said his aware of the tough competition but remained hopeful of getting to the finals.
Badminton Zambia (BZ) technical director Kenny Sivile said the players were in good shape and is expecting them to put up a good performance.
Meanwhile, Julien Georges and Kate Foo Kune of Mauritius beat the Egyptian pair of Ali Pi-Khateeb and Doha Hang 2-0 in the mixed doubles finals of the just ended Zambia International championship held at the National Sports Development Centre (NASDEC).
Pi-Khateeb and Hang earlier eliminated the Zambian team of Ngosa Chongo and Ogar 2-0 in the semi-finals before cruising to win the title over the Egyptians with set scores of 21-15 and 21-15.
In the men’s doubles final, Giovanni Greco and Rosario Maddaloni of Italy beat Andress Malan and William Dijoen of South Africa 2-0 winning 21-15 and 21-18.
The women’s doubles final saw Mitchell Batlar and Emma Dilliear of South Africa cliam the title after beating Kate Foo Kune of Mauritius and Grace Gabriel of Nigeria 2-1 (21-15,10-21 and 21-18).
Uganda’s Edwin Ekiring beat Alen Roj of Slovenia 21-8 and 21-9 (2-0) to win the men’s singles while Foo Kune won the women’s singles final after beating Gabriel 2-1 (21-19,18-21 and 22-20).
BZ president Kay Chirwa described the tournament as a success and thanked the sponsors for coming to the aid of the association.
Italy, Mexico, Hungry, Slovenia, South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius, Iran, Uganda and Botswana and hosts Zambia were among the countries that took part in the tournament.