Nigeria-born Canadian, Chitanna Nwadike and Nigeria’s Marylove Edwards today emerged as the boys and girls’ singles champion in the second leg of the ITF World Tennis Tour J5 Abuja decided at the Tennis Complex of MKO Abiola National Stadium, Abuja. Emmanuel Michael and Marylove Edwards were the boys and girls’ singles champions last week.
Nwadike, seeded tournament number eight and 1716 on the ITF ranking list, defeated unseeded Muktar Andu from Great Britain (who is 1955 on the ITF list), in two straight 6-3, 6-3 to grab the boys’ title, where Emmanuel Michael would have perhaps made it double victory but his lackadaisical attitude and indiscipline, denied him the opportunity as he was walked over in the quarters by Lucky Danjuma as he was nowhere to be found when his match was called. Marylove Edwards, seeded number one and 394 on the ITF list, powered past Egypt’s Joody Elkady seeded number two and 994 on the ITF list, in two straight 6-1, 6-4 for the girls’ crown.
• Tournament referee…Arin Isa
Great Britain’s Andu and Edwards were however the most consistent with two final appearances. While Edwards was victorious in the two, Andu was over powered 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-0 last week by Emmanuel Michael and lost 1-6, 0-6 to Amadike today. His epic semi-final he won 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-2 against Lucky Danjuma yesterday may have drained his energy for today’s final against hard-hitting Amadike.
It was the pair of Amadike and David Ekpenyong that clinched the boys’ doubles after beating the twosome Harrison Gradin (Sweden) and Joseph Jimoh (Nigeria) 4-6, 6-3 (10-4).
Romi Cohen (Israel) and Marylove Edwards (Nigeria) defeated the combination of Joody Elkady (Egypt) and Ozi-oiza Yakubu (Nigeria) 6-3, 6-3 for the girls’ crown.
The tournament referee, Arin Isa said afterwards that it was a stress-free event but the PUMA Engineering Wheelchair Tennis Tour that affected the number of chair umpires.
“But the challenge we had on the chair umpires was immediately arrested. The players and officials were cool-headed throughout the period of the tournament. There was no cause of making any report”, she said.
