By Kuvee Kangueehi WINDHOEK The Namibia Tennis Association (NTA) yesterday received a massive boost when they received a sponsorship of N$80 000 from Mobile Telecommunications Corporation (MTC) in the capital. The money from Namibia’s number one sport sponsor will be used for the ITF Futures International Men’s tournament scheduled for Windhoek in early October. Accepting the sponsorship from MTC, the President of the Namibia Tennis Association (NTA) Bob Mould said that Namibia has been successfully presenting international tennis tournaments with MTC as sponsoring partner during the past few years. ” This resulted in the International Tennis Federation’s request for Namibia to host the first Futures tournament in Southern Africa this year.” He said the series would start in the capital on Friday 6 October with the qualifying rounds and the main tournament to start on Monday the 9th October until the 14th October. The NTA president added that the players would move to Botswana before ending in South Africa during the last week in October. At the same occasion Mould thanked the sponsors for supporting international tennis in Namibia: “With generous sponsorship as well as the Safari Hotel for the provision of special sport rates for the players.” The international Futures tournaments are scheduled in a minimum of three consecutive weeks in a region with a prize money tag of U$10 000 and U$ 15 000. The tournament also features internationally qualified referees and officials. The Futures tournaments are open to male players based on merit and only entries with the highest ranking may be accepted into the main draw consisting of 32 players. Meanwhile, Nampa reports that the Namibia Inline Hockey team will engage Great Britain in their opening match of the Inline Hockey World Championship scheduled to kick off in Budapest, Hungary on Monday (yesterday). Great Britain is last year’s championship bronze medalist. Namibia is in Group D with Japan, Britain and Argentina. On Tuesday Namibia will rub shoulders with Japan while their date against Argentina is billed for Wednesday. Countries participating at the world event are Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Finland, United States of America (USA), Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Brazil, Australia and Croatia. The championship will conclude on 16 July.