Netball Queens fall to South Africa

Tanzania national netball team lost their second World Cup qualifying match to hosts South Africa by 64-25 at the Mamelodi venue in Pretoria yesterday.

After winning their opening match against Lesotho by 50-25 on Monday, Tanzania fell pray to the host nation in yesterday’s earlier game of the Pool 1.

The team was supposed to win its third match against highly physique Zimbabwe later in the evening to weigh progression into the subsequent stage of the qualifiers.

Eight African countries are battling it out in Mamelodi this week for a coveted place in the World Netball Championships in Singapore next year.

Three African countries will take part in the world championships.

Malawi have already qualified because they were ranked fifth in the world before July 2010, and the other two places will go to the teams finishing first and second in the ongoing African qualifiers at the Mamelodi campus of the University of Pretoria.

The teams taking part have been divided into two pools, with South Africa, Tanzania, Lesotho and Zimbabwe in Pool 1 and Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Uganda in Pool 2.

After three pool matches spread over two days, the top two teams from each section will go into a new pool to play for positions one to four, and the others will play off for positions five to eight.

South Africa have already qualified to play in the final stages after winning all of their pool matches having floored Zimbabwe 64-29 in the opener and thrashing Lesotho 86-14.

Other Pool 2 matches played on Monday saw Botswana beat Namibia 59-34.

However, Zimbabwe lost to Lesotho by 58-24 to set up a thrilling final Pool 1 tie between Tanzania and Zimbabwe.