ZIMBABWEAN female tennis player Valeria Bhunu made a promising start on her return to the ITF Women’s Circuit for the first time in five months, after reaching the season round of the $10 000 Babolat Women’s Tournament in the Turkish city of Antalya.
DANIEL NHAKANISO SPORTS REPORTER
The ITF Women’s Circuit is a series of professional tennis tournaments for female professional tennis players which serves as the developmental circuit for the WTA Tour.
The 19-year-old rising star, who had not played on the ITF Women’s Circuit since June, put on a solid perfomance to register a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Russia’s Anjelika Vlasenkova on Tuesday.
Yesterday, Valeria was expected to square off against the tournament’s fourth seed Anastasia Vdovenco from Madagascar.
Tennis Zimbabwe (TZ) president Regis Bhunu, who is also the player’s father, said Valeria, was making a gradual return to circuit after a break due to academic commitments and injuries.
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“Last year, Valeria took a break from tennis to focus on her studies and after successfully completing her high school diploma through Internet Learning, she returned and started training again at her base in Cape Town,” Bhunu said.
“She played a couple of tournaments on the circuit in South Africa in June, but because she had been away for a long time, she was slowed down a bit by injuries,” he said.
Bhunu said Valeria was scheduled to take part in four tournaments before the end of the year to test the progress she has made.
“Her coach felt she needed to make a gradual return before making a full comeback to the circuit next year. Her perfomance in her first match in Turkey has, however, been very encouraging considering she has not been playing regularly for a while now,” Bhunu said.
Valeria, who won the Zimbabwe Open title in 2010 aged only 15, is one of the country’s brightest prospects in women’s tennis together with fellow South Africa-based player Nicole Dzenga.
Dzenga (17) has been making a strong impact on the ITF Junior Circuit where she recently won two singles titles and all three doubles titles at the ITF West & Central Africa Junior Circuit tournaments in Togo and Benin.