Gaborone – The second leg of the ITF CAT junior championship at Gaborone, Botswana, started on a high note with young Namibian Gina Moolman winning the under-14 girls singles and doubles titles.
In the final the 2nd seeded Namibian caused a major upset when she smashed the South African tournament favourite Roshelle Pienaar 6-4,6-3. Moolman, who had lost to the top seed a week before in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, exploited Pienaar’s weaknesses to win the tournament in straight sets.
On her road to her singles title, the 2nd seeded Moolman had beaten Mais Manyama from Lesotho 6-2, 6-1. In a nail-biting three-setter she defeated the 3rd seed South African Arista Seiberts 1-6, 6-4, 6-0.
The South African overpowered Moolman in the 1st set 6-1 with aggressive game-hitting winners from impossible positions.
However, the resilient Moolman in the 2nd set played with depth and consistency and won the second set 6-4. In the third set her tired opponent offered little resistance and Moolman took the decisive set 6-0.
In the doubles section the Namibian Moolman teamed up with Roshelle Pienaar to win the tournament when they beat Zimbabwe’s Vimbai Moyo and Arista Seirberts 6-4, 6-4.
In the under-14 boys section Diken de Jongh who had a bye in the 1st round crushed Abia Bleskit from Botswana 6-0,6-0 to book himself a place in the quarterfinals but failed to rise to the occasion when he lost to the South African 3rd seed Andreas Scott 6-2,6-0.
Megan Lombardt also went down fighting when she lost to the Zimbabwean 4th seed Vimbai Moyo in the quarterfinals of the girls under-14’s. In the under-12 girls section Hendrina Apollus lost to the South African 2nd seed 6-0,6-0 in the quarterfinals.
In the under-12 boys section Johannes Swartz lost to Denzel Seetso 6-2, 6-1 and his compatriots Joshua Bernard and Albertus Brinkmann lost 6-1 6-0 and 7-5 6-1 in their 1st round matches respectively .The third and final leg will also take place in Gaborone.