After an eventful first leg at the Junior ITF U-18 Circuit in Benin Republic, Team Nigeria have landed in Lome, the capital city of Togo, for the second leg of the three-week long championship, Naija Tennis Special can report.
Adetayo Adetunji capped an otherwise unconvincing first leg for the Nigerians with a consistent win over all her opponents before wrapping it up with a Singles win for the African giants, and the team set out almost immediately afterwards for the second phase of the competition.
As against the performance in the first leg, the players are poised to overturn Nigeria’s fortunes in the first leg and they began their adventure on Monday against really tough opponents in the fixture sent to our correspondent by the players’ coaches.
Venus Williams opened the floodgate for Nigerian players at the second leg of the Junior ITF Circuit in Lome, Togo, on Monday. |
Nigeria’s Venus Ubiebi sparred against Joksovic, the number one seed of the tournament just as Mariam Balogun faced another fierce threat in her encounter against number four seed, Chloe Cirotte, while Oyinlomo Barakat, the Nigerian number two seed tackled Emeline Honfoga.
In another girls’ singles match, involving a Nigerian player, Omolayo Bamidele tackled Chelsea Agaouga as Peace Udoh maintained a date with Carmine Becoude, seeded number eight.
In the boys’ singles, Michael Ayoola had an encounter with against Raphael Perot, as Michael Osewa was made to trade tackles against Isaac El Haya.
Other matches involving Nigerians had Emma Dim tackle Ronald Totimeh, Wilson Igbinovia and Abdoulaziz Bationo, Martins Abamu flexed muscles against Sibi Junior Soumahoro as his brother, Matthew Abamu traded rackets in his match against Vence N’tcha.
Naija Tennis Special will bring you updates from the matches as soon as they are concluded.