Only one Tanzanian, Marwa Busigara, made it through to the quarter-finals of the Alliance Insurance Uhuru Squash Open at the Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club (DGC).
Busigara, however, had to win against the Zambian Number One Seed, Manda Chilambwe in the evening to make it into the semi-finals this (Friday) morning.
Busigara told the ‘Daily News’ he had ‘mixed feelings’ being the only local boy to have made it to that level but he was happy to see that as the host country, Tanzania still had a representative in the tournament. “However, I’m discouraged because this tournament seems to have given us a wake-up call.
Evidently we need to pull-up our standard of squash in order to be able to compete with these guys. I will do my best when I meet the Zambian Number One in the evening, but it will be an up-hill battle,” he admitted.
He said there must be more competitions and some changes are needed concerning the local approach to the game. “Players really need to work on their lower and upper body, so as to build-up stamina. You see squash is the only game where you need to be fit to play it.
You don’t play it to be fit,” said Busigara, who apart from being the Interim Secretary of Squash Tanzania, is also the tournament’s referee. He was pleased to see that they had reached this stage in the tournament, which started on Wednesday morning successfully.
In the ladies games, which started yesterday afternoon, there were signs that at least one local girl would get through to the semi-finals this morning. No Ugandans had gone through to yesterday’s quarter-finals.
That means Busigara, one Kenyan and six Zambians played in the quarter-finals. The winners will compete in the semifinals this morning and the final will take place in the evening.
By IMAN MANI, Tanzania Daily News