Top Seeds Emerge Winners Of NNPC Junior Tennis Tourney

The 2016 NNPC Junior Ten
nis Championships ended at the weekend with Daniel Adeleye, Matthew Abamu, Augustine Stephen, Angel Mcleod, MaryLove Edwards and Timipre Maxwell winning the male and female categories.
The competition featured eight events in the boys’ and girls’ U-12, U-14, U-16 and U-18 categories at its National Stadium Lagos venue.
The climax of the event was an outstanding performance in the girls’ U-18 category where Edwards battled with Mcleod for close to an hour.
The match was halted because of downpour with Edwards leading with 4-2.
However, both were announced as winners in the event.
Edwards, reacting to the match, expressed satisfaction with her performance at the competition.
“I have played her in previous competitions and we play the same game.
“The rains may have stopped our game, but I know that it will not be an easy match for me because we both have the same style of play,’’ she said.
On her part, Macleod said that it would not be an easy feat for her as Edwards was a very good base-line player and loves to hit the ball at the edge of the court.
“I was not surprised to meet her at the final.
“Although we have not met in the final of this competition in a long time, I know what she is capable of.
“I am glad that we both won because we deserved to win after so much effort we have put in the competition,’’ she said.
In the girls’ U-14 final match, Maxwell defeated Rivers-based Jimi-Jaja Ameyefori 9-6 in a pre set to win the title.
In the boys’ U-18, however, Stephen defeated Ayoola Michael 9-5 in a pro set to win the title.
In the boys’ U-16 category, Abamu clinched the title 9-6, edging out Jebutu Emmanuel.
“It was not an easy game playing a colleague and a close friend who I train with every day,’’ Abamu said.
Emmanuel, however, attributed his loss to the strength of his opponent.
“It took a lot of strength to fight back, but I could not keep up with my opponent.’’
In the boys’ U-12, Ekiti-based Adeleye defeated Abdul-Magaji of Kwara 9-1 to win the title.
Abamu also won the most outstanding male player, while Toyin Asogba won that of the female.
Godwin Kienka, Coordinator, International Tennis Academy (ITA), said that he was impressed with the players’ performances in the competition.
He said that the academy had achieved a lot in training the children in the past 12 years.
Kienka said that the next challenge was to prepare the players for the ATP level where they could be ranked at the age of 18.
“By the time they are 19, they will have enough wisdom, knowledge and skills to begin to accumulate points for ATP ranking.