THE Zimbabwe women netball team, the Gems, continued their winning start in the Africa Netball Cup currently underway at the MTC Dome Swakopmund in Namibia after securing their second consecutive victory against Eswatini on Tuesday.
Zimbabwe kicked off their Africa Netball Cup campaign with a stunning 50-49 victory over the second best ranked side on the African continent Uganda on Monday before thumping a hapless Eswatini 78-27 Eswatini the following day.
It was a major upset in the tournament by the Gems, currently ranked 13th in the world over a Uganda side, who are sixth on the global rankings.
After taking a rest yesterday, the Nedbank-sponsored Gems will be high in confidence when they take on hosts Namibia today.
“We are overjoyed and proud about this win because a first and second win gives hope and confidence about our next games, our hard work has paid off,” said Gems captain Felisitus Kwangwa after the win over Eswatini.
“This impressive victory is a testament to the team’s dedication, perseverance and unwavering spirit. We did prepare for this win, we are just coming from the Celtic Cup, where we learnt some new skills and trying to build our team for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers and as a team we have been lacking resilience but we manage to do that during the match,” she added.
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Coach Ropafadzo Mutsauki added that the players have been doing a good job and they are hoping to perform very well against their match with Namibia.
“We are very confident ahead of the match against hosts Namibia. We have seen Namibia playing and we now know their skills and how strong the team is,” he said.
“Our target in this tournament is to enter in the semifinals so that we can reach the 2027 World Cup qualifiers as a strong and highly ranked team.”
There are eight countries namely Uganda, Eswatini, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and the hosts Namibia competing in the women’s contest.
Meanwhile, the men’s netball team has also been doing relatively well at the Africa Netball Cup after winning two of their four matches.
The team lost 49–45 to Eswatini on Monday before beating Lesotho 73-16 in their first match on Tuesday.
A narrow 41–39 defeat to South Africa would follow on the same day and the team bounced back to winning ways yesterday with a 32–28 triumph over Kenya yesterday.