FACT CHECK: Egypt’s Maamoun Overtakes Turkish Star As Governor’s Cup No 1 Seed

As at last week, Ilkel, the 22-year-old Turkish number two player, was ranked 230 and appeared to have cemented his place as the number one seed of the tournament as the player with the highest ranking points at the pro-circuit.

Maamoun is no stranger to the Governor’s Cup Lagos Tennis Championship.

But Nigerian Tennis Live checks on the ITF website revealed that as at Friday, 6 October, Egypt’s Maamoun had toppled the Davis Cup player and now ranks 227 to become the number one player on the acceptance list, pushing Ilkel (now ranked 281) to a third place position on the log.

Maamoun is a Davis Cup player for the North African country and is a regular at the Governor’s Cup as he has been coming for the ITF Futures for quite some time and won the Doubles in 2015 when he partnered with Harris Llyod of South Africa.

This also effectively means that Clifford Enosoregbe who is ranked 1163 is only one Nigerian player who made the automatic slot for a place in the Main Draws with the indisposed Sylvester Emmanuel dropping to the qualifying segment even though this will not stop him from playing in the main draws (if he is healthy as he claims).

The screenshot of the latest ranking as published on the ITF website.

Nigerian Tennis Live will be on ground to monitor the draws ahead of time to see which player eventually becomes the number one seed for the tournament as the clock starts ticking.

Meanwhile, reports have it that some players in the Main Draws of the ITF pro-circuit have started arriving Nigeria from their different locations since Friday evening, as they would love to acclimatize before the commencement of the championship.

Spectators and guests are advised to buy their tickets to watch tennis action over the next two weeks at Ariya Tickets and Naija Tickets Shop for N1,500 and N5,000 (regular and VIPs respectively).