Mzuzu-based tennis star Ramesh Banda came third during an International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Tennis Championship in Morocco last week.
The four-strong contest saw Malawi’s number one Under-12 junior tennis player defeated in two out of the four game stages.
This means Banda has lost a scholarship to study at the High Performance Centre in Morocco to South African Van Schalkwyk Cornor who was crowned champion.
Alagwa Omari from Ivory Coast came second after winning three games out of four.
“It was a difficult tournament. I tried my best, but my opponents were good enough and I could not overcome them. However, more lessons have been learnt out of this tournament. I believe next time I will do better,” said Ramesh in an interview yesterday.
The tennis starlet was the only junior Malawian player selected for this year’s regional Southern Africa Tennis team having impressed at the Junior Circuit Championship in Botswana.
Lawn Tennis Association of Malawi (Ltam) general secretary Christopher Kachali said a lot of issues have to be addressed for the nation to record more junior tennis stars.
“We expected a lot from him. However, we have realised that we still have more issues to be addressed for our players to do better. We need to have more national tennis tournaments,” said Kachali
