Joseph Imeh’s outstanding performance in the outgoing year 2017 has not gone unnoticed as he has accumulated enough points to shoot him to the top of the rankings as Nigeria’s number one male tennis player for the year ending.
Imeh incredibly lost in four final outings (if the NCC Tennis League is added) in 2017 having started out as the winner of the Rainoil Masters series, but this did not affect his rating as one of Nigeria’s best players of the year.
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| Joseph Imeh is set to end year 2017 as Nigeria’s number one player even though he did not win any title. |
Ahead of the commencement of the Rainoil Tennis Championship, the runner up at the 2017 CBN Open final was rated as number two just behind ageless Abdulmumin Babalola and while the latter lost out in the quarterfinals, Imeh made it to the final.
With this result, the Ibadan-based tennis kingpin is likely to concede his place as the country’s number one player to the budding youngster who also lost the final of the Dala Hard Court championship in Kano to Thomas Otu.
Although the rankings are yet to be officially announced, the chances are pretty high that Imeh will start year 2018 as Nigeria’s number one male player, even though he did not win any national tournament in the outgoing year.
His chances are also aided by the fact that he competed against three different players in each of the finals of the national tournaments which he lost.
The young man fondly called Fargo lost to Babalola in the CBN Open final, lost to Otu at the Dala Hard Court final and could not withstand Henry Atseye on clay at the finals of the Rainoil Tennis Championship in Lagos.
Nigerian Tennis Live will publish the full ranking as soon as the points are calculated and made available to our correspondent.