Canice Abua lived up to his pre-tournament billing as the top seed of the VEMP Open National Tennis Open Championship with an opening day win.
Abua, the competition’s number one seed, defeated Yusuf Abubakar in straight sets of 6-2, 6-4 on the centre court in the first match of the day.
The match set the tone for what would become a good day in the office for the top players in the national championship as they all went for broke in their respective matches.
Michael Emmanuel, who is returning from an injury layoff, defeated David John 6-3, 6-0 while Musa Mohammed got the better of wild card Seyi Ogunsakin with a brilliant 6-2, 6-0 win.
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Lucky Danjuma, Nigeria’s top junior player, defeated Oche Adehi, the Oman-based former national player in two sets, to send a signal to other top players. The match ended 6-3, 6-4. Meanwhile, lucky loser Gbolahan Oladipupo could not find a way past wild card Mevi Irimiya who won 6-1, 6-2.
Also, Mubarak Ganiyu was the better player when he squared up against Dahiru Mohammed with a 6-3, 6-2 win to move to the second round of the VEMP Open championship.
The match of the day in the Men’s Singles event was between Yahaya Sani-Inabo and Matthew Abamu which was a repeat of their meetings at two consecutive events.
Mambilla Barracks-trained Inabo took the first set 6-2 and was cruising to a straight sets win after leading 5-3 and had match points against the Lagos boy. But it was Abamu who took the initiative as he held serve twice and broke the number seven seed to take the lead.
Inabo would later hold serve and eventually take the game to a tiebreak. Abamu wasted no time in the tiebreak with an audacious 5-1 lead. Even though his opponent fought back in the game, it was too little too late as the tiebreak ended 7-5 despite.
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The final set did not continue as the second set as Abamu had started cramping at this point and retired at when his opponent was leading 3-0.
In the female event, Success Ogunjobi, Etoro Bassey and Mary Udoffa stormed to impressive wins in their first round matches.
Ogunjobi bageled budding youngster, Dabira Oluwaseun 6-0, 6-0; Bassey defeated Emmanuella Kelvin-Bebe 6-1, 6-2; Udoffa won 6-0, 6-1 against Amarachi Odoh while Goodnews Aina crushed Mary Azi 6-2, 6-2.
Defending Champion Blessing Omotayo ran riot against Favour Godwin with a 6-0, 6-2 win just as Bamidele Omolayo, another seeded player won 6-3, 6-1 against Alice Paul. In other matches, Loveth Ogah beat Diana Ahmed 6-0, 6-1 while Timipre Maxwell outmuscled Idowu Lagundoye 6-3, 7-6(4).
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Nigeria’s number one player, Khadijat Mohammed, defeated Jesutoyosi Adeusi, 6-2, 6-3 to start her quest for her third consecutive national title haul just as Favour Moses beat Blessing Otu 6-2, 6-1. Bunmi Are saw off Adesewa Olaniyan with a 6-1, 6-3 win wild card Khadijat Salami beat veteran Omotayo Osewa 6-1, 7-5.
Suwa Nenrot defeated Destiny Tomizayi, another wild card player, 6-2, 6-3 while Oluchi Ozurumba was forced to retire against Emanuella Ishaku after sustaining an injury while she was 0-5 down.
The other matches in the first round will be played on Tuesday, 8 July, 2025, while the Doubles matches will also serve off.
Nigeria Tennis Live will keep all our readers updated on the latest developments from the competition which is the first of three national tournaments slated for July, 2025.