Lumeta to participate in three North African competitions

South Africa-based lawn tennis star Chisomo Lumeta will have a busy schedule betweenJune 18 and July 6 as he will be participating in three North Africancompetitions in Tunisia and Egypt.TheInternational Tennis Federation (ITF) has considered the 15-year-old for theevents following his outstanding performance during last year’s InternationalJunior Tennis Championships in Egypt where he won bronze after beating the hostcountry’s Abdul Kasim 6-4, 6-1 during a third-place encounter.

Lawn TennisAssociation of Malawi (LTAM) president Duncan Gumbi yesterday said Lumeta willparticipate in the Carthago Cup in Tunisia from June 18-23 before taking partin the Tunisian Open Junior Championships from 26 to 30 June.Then, Gumbisaid, Lumeta will fly to Cairo for the Egyptian International JuniorChampionship from 1 to 6 July.“Thesecompetitions will be vital for Lumeta as they will help him improve on tennisrankings,” he said.The tenniswonder-boy, who won gold in the Under-14 category during the ITF South/CentralAfrica Juniors Circuit in Namibia last year, is based at the High PerformanceCentre (HPC) in South Africa where he is being nurtured into a professionaltennis player.

Lumeta wasroped into the HPC in 2009 after taking gold during the Under-12 Junior CircuitChampionships in South Africa.In anotherdevelopment, the Presidential Initiative on Sports (PIS) national finals weresuccessfully conducted at Lilongwe Golf Club few days ago despite threats bysome disgruntled senior players to disrupt the event.Aggrey Chidothi retained the title in the Under-18 boyscategory while Willie Kaunde, Anderson M’dala and Lamesh Banda did it in theUnder-16, Under-14 and Under-12 divisions, respectively.

In the ladies’section, Prisca Maloya, Tina Chirwa, Winnie Soko and Kanishka Kapoor carriedthe day correspondingly.