Africa-Press – Namibia. Namibia will remain in the Africa Group III of the Billie Jean King Cup tournament after finishing eighth overall out of 12 nations on Saturday.
Morocco, meanwhile, won the 12-nation tournament to gain promotion to the Europe/Africa Group II after beating Kenya 2-1 in their final match on Saturday.
Namibia already ensured their survival in Africa Group III last Thursday when they avoided the bottom position in Group A after beating Burundi 3-0 last Thursday.
That put them through to the seventh to ninth position play-off matches, where they beat Ghana 2-1, but lost 3-0 to Tunisia.
In their final encounter against Tunisia on Saturday, Kerstin
Gressmann won the opening set against Lina Soussi on a tiebreaker 7-6, but Soussi struck back to win the second set 6-4 before sweeping through the third set 6-0 to complete a 2-1 win.
The second singles match between Liniques Teron and Mouna Bouzgarrou was a close affair, with Bouzgarrou eventually sealing a narrow 7-5, 7-5 victory.
Soussi and Ranim Rassil then completed a 3-0 victory for Tunisia after winning the doubles encounter 6-1, 7-5.
Morocco, meanwhile, beat Kenya 2-1 on Saturday to win the tournament and gain promotion to Europe/Africa Group II. Malak El Allami beat Melissa Mwakha 6-4, 6-3 in the first singles encounter, but Kenya drew level after Angella Okutoyi beat Yasmine Kabbaj 6-2, 6-4.
Morocco, however, won the tie after El Allami and Diae El Jardi beat Okutoyi and Cynthia Wanjala 6-3, 4-6, 10-6 in a dramatic doubles encounter.
Botswana finished third, followed by Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tunisia, Namibia, Ghana, Algeria, Burundi and Uganda, who are now relegated to Africa Group IV.
It was the first time that Namibia had hosted the Billie Jean King Cup, and the president of the Namibia Tennis Association, Sam Kaulinge, says it went well.
“We learned a lot of things, but I’m happy that we managed to pull it off, and now we are looking forward to hosting more tournaments in the future,” he says.
“We’ve got everything in our favour – we’ve got the facilities, and we’ve got trained personnel now, who know what is expected by the International Tennis Federation,” he says.
“Regarding the performance of our team – it was a mixture of older and younger players. We included some juniors in the team with an eye on the future because I think it’s time that we start exposing them to this level of tennis,” he says.
“We also received very good feedback from the ITF – they are happy with Namibia’s ability to host this kind of tournament – I received very good comments regarding the facilities, the hotel accommodation, and the transport,” he says.
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