Nigeria’s charge for at least, a second round advancement at the ongoing GSL Tennis Open met brick walls on Monday as four of the country’s representatives were booted out in the first round.
This is coming barely 24 hours after this tennis blog reported the joy on the faces of Nigerians after having seven players in the Main Draws of the tournament making its debut at the Package B of the National Stadium, Abuja.
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| Christian Paul will be disappointed to have made little or no impact at the three legs of the ITF Futures in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital. |
Naija Tennis Special gathered that the Nigerian players were beaten silly by their foreign counterparts in matches that many expected that they would have performed better.
For instance, Henry Atseye was defeated in two straights sets of 6-0, 6-0 by Diz-Figueroa Christopher from Guatemala just as Christian Paul fell like a pack of cards to Anand Kunal from India in a 6-1, 6-1 game which lasted less about 45minutes.
In other matches, tournament’s number three seed, Bega Alessandro from Italy defeated Thomas Otu in a 6-1, 6-2 game (the longest by a Nigerian on the day), while Argasinski David from Poland had an easy ride over Joseph Adimabua Iyorovbe with a 6-0, 6-1 win.
With this results, the only chance of Nigerian players making it to the next phase of the competition is if Clifford Enosoregbe, Sylvester Emmanuel and Joseph Imeh can pull off surprise wins on the first round matches which will take place on Tuesday, 16 May.
Nigerians will also be involved in Doubles matches as Atseye, Emmanuel Idoko, Imeh, Otu and Paul will be in strong contention for a place in the quarterfinals of the event.