Lumeta grabs gold, Malawi finishes third
Chisomo Lumeta grabbed gold at the Southern African Junior Circuit Championships in Gaborone, Botswana on Sunday to lead the Malawi team to a historic third-place overall finish among 13 countries.
South Africa emerged overall winners whereas Zimbabwe finished second.
It has been a remarkable event for the five-player Malawi squad which also saw rising star Ramesh Banda earned bronze in Under-12 boys category. The other representatives Anderson Mdala, Zione Nkhoma and Linda Msiska lost in quarter-finals of their Under-14 boys, Under-14 girls and Under-12 girls respectively.
As the team’s captain, Lumeta led by example by earning emphatic victories in all his eight matches, including a 6-4, 6-2 triumph over South African C. Jordan in the Under-16 boys category finals.
The results will help the 15-year-old star, who is based at the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) High Performance Centre (HPC) in Morocco, to improve his ranking from the present position 469 among over 2 000 registered junior players in the world.
For the other Malawi flag carriers, the results will be benchmarks to win scholarships at the HPC as Lumeta did in 2009.
