Mele Bizimana will beef up his preparations for this year’s ITF/CAT Africa Zonal Championship with a four-day ITF training camp in Pretoria, South Africa. The country’s top junior tennis player who has been training at Cercle Sportif flies out to Pretoria this morning aboard a Rwandair Express flight. “He will have a four-day training camp in Pretoria before heading to Gaborone for the championship,” the national team coach Thierry Ntwali said. “The training camp is entirely organized and sponsored by the ITF (International Tennis Federation),” Ntwali added. Bizimana who turns 16 later this year is making his fourth appearance in the zonal championships that roll off next Tuesday in Gaborone, Botswana. In 2005 and 2006, he competed in the U-14 category while in 2007; he competed in the U-16 category were he was ejected in the first round. According to the assistant national tennis coach Slyvain Rutikanga, Bizimana who will play for Rwanda under the ITF team Umbrella is in good shape and should be a handful for his opponents. He qualified for the championship after a fairly good show in the qualifiers that were held in Burundi early this year. Rwanda’s other representatives struggled in the six- day tournament that was claimed by Burundi. Rwanda finished 5th in the nine-nation tournament.The five-day championship will bring together Africa’s finest junior tennis players. Ends
