Abua Canice and Musa Mohammed who won the first and second legs of the Abuja Junior ITF Circuit respectively, have dropped places on the recently released junior ITF rankings.
Nigeria Tennis Live checks revealed that both players who are currently among the top 1200 and 900 players in the world respectively, have started dropping points as they’ve not played any ITF competition since the end of the Abuja competition.
Canice was an outstanding player in the first leg, causing unprecedented upsets in the competition and grew from a totally unknown player to become one of the top 1200 players.
But following a discontinuation of tournaments for the youngster, he has started falling down the pecking order, as he is now ranked 1135 in the world.
With this trend, it may not be long before he loses all the points by winning the Abuja junior competition, as several other players in the world are rising through the ranks and are consistently playing on the circuit to boost their ranking points.
Also, relatively unknown Mohammed who shot into prominence after defeating pre-tournament favourite, Abayomi Phillips, in the second leg of the competition, is fast losing a grip on the top 900 position he presently occupies, as he is beginning fall down the rankings.
The recent rankings released by the ITF revealed that he is now rated 883 in the world, falling from the 869th position he occupied after winning the Grade 5 ITF event in Abuja a few weeks ago.
Phillips who’s presently in Norway for a two-week junior ITF competition, remains Nigeria’s most ranked player on the circuit, and in spite of his not too convincing performance in the European country, but has equally dropped points in the new rankings.
The youngster is now ranked 487 in the world following his inability to progress beyond the second round of the Stavanger Junior ITF tournament which ended last weekend in Norway.
Emmanuel Jebutu was also one of those affected by the rankings as he is now ranked 972 in spite of the progress he made during the two-week competition in Nigeria’s Federal Capital.
The Nigerian players keep falling down the pecking orders on the world junior rankings as their performances since the end of the junior ITF competition in Abuja.
Nigeria Tennis Live will keep tabs on the players’ performances on the circuit as they look forward to the next junior rankings.