Lawn Tennis: BH Open underway in Yaoundé

A lawn tennis tournament christened ‘BH Open’ began at the Noah country club in Yaounde on Sunday.

The tournament which is in its maiden edition, brings together some 64 participants aged between 20 and 60, competing in the senior men and women categories and will run up to October 3rd.

Speaking on the reason for organizing the competition, the marketing director of Swiss Eco Concept, Juliette Abwa said, it was to make up for the lack of competitions since the brains behind the competition are former lawn tennis players who have been out of the country and returned only to find that tennis was in lethargy and decided to do something to boost the game in Cameroon.

She declared that should the experience be successful, the competition will not only be yearly but also go international.

The opening ceremony of the competition was marked by speeches from Zacharie Noah, the honorary president of the competition and exhibition matches in the veteran and cadet categories.

The exhibition match in the veteran category pitted the male champion of Cameroon, Gomsi Marcel against the female champion, Anya Chantal while in the minims category, the exhibition match pitted the current Cameroon champion, Menaga Kaba against the vice champion, Atana Jonathan.

The competition started yesterday with the pre-qualification series to be followed today by the 16th finals. The 8th final matches will take place tomorrow while the quarter final matches take place on Thursday.

The semi finals will be on Friday October 2nd while the final and closing ceremony takes place on Saturday October 3rd. The winners and runner up in each category will be rewarded a cash prize of FCFA 200.000. It is worthy to note that the top five of the lawn tennis national classification.