Dr. Faustina Igwebuike of Team Excellence at the tennis event of the ongoing NNPC Sports Fiesta is already planning to defend the title she won in 2020.
The Women’s Singles defending champion qualified her team for the Women’s Singles final, an event she won during the last edition of the competition, and cannot wait to hit the court to retain the trophy.
In a chat with Nigeria Tennis Live, the Lagos-based tennis champion explained that she was excited to have reached another final of the Sports Fiesta, having last played one about four years ago.
She noted, however, that the level of many players has greatly improved, an indication that reaching the final of the event again was not on a platter of gold.
“It was really challenging to reach the final, because a lot of the players have improved from the last time,” Dr. Igwebuike from the Lagos/Warri zone stated.
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“But I was able to pull through and reach the final of the event with my experience and I’m glad I made it here again,” she added.
The final match is now delicately poised to be a cracker between Team Excellence and Team Sustainability (Abuja/Kaduna zone) following an excellent run also by the second finalist, Ullo Kasuwa.
Asked if she feels confident and under pressure going into the deciding match, the Team Excellence star player noted that “pressure cannot be taken away completely from this kind of game, however, I just want to go out there, have fun and do my thing”.
The NNPC Sports Fiesta is a bi-annual event which serves as a trial for the team that will represent the company in different sports at the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Games (NOGIG) but was last held in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 2024 edition of the week-long event, Nigeria Tennis Live gathered, will be held some time in April.