08 Nov 2021

Botswana Bridge Federation (BBF) returned to action over the weekend though with a disappointing turn up.

BBF spokesperson, Mbakisi Malilo, decried the low turn up of players during the federation’s open pairs tournament at the University of Botswana on Saturday.

The federation’s mouthpiece said after a long time without action, the tournament was meant to bring all bridge players under the same roof.

He said after a lengthy online play, the federation returned to physical play with the launch of the open pairs.

Malilo said tournaments, which were lined up by the federation would also help in picking the national team that would participate in upcoming continental and international tournaments.

Botswana is set to send a team to the World Youth championships in 2023 and another team to the African Bridge championships same time.

Venues for the two internationally accredited tournaments were yet to be announced and Malilo said the federation would intensify its selection processes starting next year.

Botswana last took part in the 2017 African championships, which were hosted by South Africa in Cape Town.

In this weekend’s tournament, Allison Davis and Letsogile Mafa scooped an impressive 26 international match points for the first spot while Malilo and Prince Ramoseki were on the second spot with 23 points.

Tshegofatso Gaosegelwe and Maiketso Ofentse came on the third spot with 20 points.

The first pair went home with a gold medal and P1 000 in prize money while runners up and third spot got silver and bronze medals pocketing  P600 and P400 respectively.

The Federation will host the open team’s matches on the last weekend of this month at the same venue. ENDS