BY Munyaradzi Madzokere
Zimbabwe’s doubles pair of Benjamin and Courtney Lock won their 10th professional tennis title together after a straight sets victory over the third- seeded partnership of Canadian Martin Beran and Briton Joshua Paris to lift the Old Mutual ITF Zimbabwe F2 doubles title at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
The Lock brothers, top seeds at the event, breezed to a 6-3 6-0 victory in less than an hour as they also won their fourth title on home soil.
Beran and Paris have been unlucky to lose two consecutive finals after they lost to Indians Prajwal Dev and Rishi Reddy in last week’s ITF Zimbabwe F1 tournament doubles decider.
Dev and Reddy were responsible for dumping out of the tournament Benjamin and Courtney Lock last week, but could only manage the quarter-finals this time around.
It’s going to be an all-Zimbabwe final in the singles competition with Zimbabwe’s number one player Takanyi Garanganga set to clash with Benjamin Lock at Harare Sports Club today.
Garanganga, a winner last week at the same venue, beat South African Charl Morgan 6-2 6-3 at the Centre Court in 1 hour and 18 minutes as he guns to make it two-out-of-two in Zimbabwe.
Benjamin Lock had to work a lot harder on his way to a 6-3 7-6 victory over Lucas Catarina from Monaco yesterday morning, setting up a mouth-watering final rubber with his countryman.
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A head-to-head comparison of the two players shows that Garanganga has won two of their three meetings on the professional circuit.
The two met in the finals at Harare Sports Club last year, with Lock winning the first one, while Garanganga won the last encounter between the country’s top two tennis players.
Garanganga also beat Lock at the South Africa F2 Futures in 2017.
