Mr. Ifeanyi Ezeokoli, the GMD of Incel Tourism, has gifted winners of the recently concluded Zenith Bank Next Generation Masters N500,000 after their stellar performances.
Lokoja-based Mary Udoffa put up a stern fight against Etoro Bassey of the GEUF Tennis Academy in Akwa-Ibom, to secure what was an unprecedented win in the girls’ final.
Udoffa, also an Akwa-Ibom indigene, was trailing for most part of the encounter before leveling the score at 6-6 in the pro set. Despite the momentum, the match was tied at 8-8 and had to be settled via a tie-break.
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Bassey seemed to have lost the match easily when her opponent took a 9-4 lead and only needed to serve for the match, but she saved four match points and fought to bring the game to 8-9. At this point, Udoffa had become tense and continued playing with caution, but it was Bassey who tripped eventually under pressure.
She hit the ball against her own net to send Udoffa and her coach into a wild jubilation on the centre court of the Ikoyi Club 1938 where the finale was held.
In the boys’ final, Joseph Franklin Jimoh was pretty much in control of the match against Henry Aina of Ondo State and took an unprecedented 4-0 lead.
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Aina, who stunned John Peter Oche to win one of the round robin matches, could not reproduce the performance which made spectators root for him in the final as he eventually crumbled to a 3-9 defeat in the hands of the Abuja-based Jimoh.
During the closing ceremony, the Incel Tourism boss Ezeokoli who was impressed with the performances of the talented youngsters, gifted them the cash prize and commended them for the high standard of tennis.
Nigeria Tennis Live gathered that this was the second consecutive year Ezeokoli was gifting winners of the tournament cash gifts after their performance.
Godwin Kienka, Director of the International Tennis Academy, organizers of the Masters said he was very happy with the impact the competition is making.
“This tournament is giving these young boys and girls a lot of confidence to take on and overcome their seniors.
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“Khadijat Mohammed who won last year went, four months later, to win the Dala Hard Court senior championships in Kano and Emmanuel Akpan one of the finalists in the boys category last year, displaced the senior champions at the Davis Cup Group 2 playoffs in Abuja in July and won all his matches against five nations to lift Nigeria into Group 2.
“These results give a lot of credit to our selection process which is very scientific and objective,” Kienka said.