Most of the country’s top tennis players have boycotted the inaugural Banque Populaire Open tennis championship which started last Friday at Nyarutarama Tennis Club. The players who initially expressed interest to compete in the professional category which gets underway this Tuesday claim that the cash prizes on offer are not convincing. “The money on offer is very little so I have decided not to take part,” the country’s top seed Jean Claude Gasigwa told Times Sport. The other players also thought to miss out include; Olivier Nkunda, Dieudonne Habiyambere, Mele Bizimana, Mathew Uwizeyimana and Cekina Niyonshuti; all in contention for the four slots at stake on the country’s Davis Cup bound team. The group is supposed to have started intensive training as part of their build-up to next month’s show piece however; nothing has been done leaving Gasigwa frustrated. “We don’t know what’s happening. We have not been told anything and yet time is running out,” he noted. This year, Rwanda is seeded in Group three (Euro-Africa) alongside Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Botswana and hosts Turkey. The teams will be divided into pools were the top two teams in each pool will advance to a ‘promotion’ pool of four teams from which the top two sides will progress to Europe/Africa Group 2. On the other hand, the bottom two teams in each pool drop to the ‘relegation’ pool were the last two sides drop to Group IV. Ends
