Nigeria Tennis Live can report that the Coach Abel Ubiebi-led team to the CAT U-12 Championship in Benin Republic has clinched gold in the girls’ event and landed in the boys’ final.
The players who had shown flashes of brilliance all week, crowned the competition with an astonishing victory over their opponents.
In the girls’ final match against Togo, Ogunjobi Success Elizabeth could not handle Pamela Adjiwanou, losing 4-6, 4-6 but the irrepressible Ohunene Yakubu made up for that by thrashing Anne Marie Gnanou 6-0, 6-0.
The Nigerian girls combined for the doubles and crushed the Togolese pair of Pamela Adjiwanou and Anne Marie Gnau in two straight sets of 6-2, 6-2.
If the girls’ match stirred the Nigerian bench, the boys’ match against hosts Benin was a spectacle, as it kept the Nigerian coach on his toes all day.
Onyekachi Ogumjiofor had lost to Bertin Tokpanou in a 4-6, 4-6 game, before team captain Oluwaseun Ogunsakin put Nigeria back in contention with a 6-2, 6-3 defeat of Paul Ndah.
But the doubles match was the best match of the day, with the tougher Nigerian boys coming out victorious with a 2-6, 6-3, 10-8 win.
Coach Abel heaved a huge sigh of relief after the win which all but confirmed Nigeria’s qualification for the main event as they await Ghana in the finals to determine who clinches gold.
Nigeria Tennis Live gathered that the medals presentation will be done on Saturday after the final match between Nigeria and Ghana.