Rwanda Beats Uganda in Davis Cup Opener

Rwanda's national Tennis team started the Davis Cup Africa Group IV tourney on a perfect note after beating Uganda in a Group A opening match of the tournament that officially opened in Kigali on Monday, July 4.

Rwanda played three games against Uganda, including two singles and one in doubles both held at the Ecology Tennis Club-IPRC Kigali and it was the hosts who came out victorious in each of the fixtures.

Ernest Habiyambere won the first singles match for Rwanda with a comfortable 2-0 victory (6-0, 6-0) over Uganda's Ronald Naswali before Bertin Karenzi, who currently plies his trade in the United States, secured the another win in favor of Rwanda after beating Uganda's Geoffrey Ocean 2-0 (6-0, 6-0) in the second match between the two countries.

Karenzi returned to the court and teamed up with his counterpart Etienne Niyigena to help the hosts win the doubles 2-0 against Uganda's pair Edward Birungi and Geoffrey Ocean (6-2, 6-0), recording their third straight victory over the visitors.

Elsewhere in Group A, Sudan beat Tanzania 2-1 sets in a hard fought victory that was decided by the doubles match after both teams were tied 1-1 with each winning one singles game aside.

The Sudanese won their first match through Khalid Derar who beat Tanzania's Yusuph Godwin 2-0 sets (6-1, 6-2) but Tanzania fought back as Frank Mshanga beat Sudan's Mohamed Abdalla 2-0 (6-4, 6-0).

But the match ended in favor of Sudan when Derar teamed up with Noor Mandour to beat Frank Mshanga and Abubakari Risasi 2-1(2-, 6-1, 6-4) to clinch their first victory of the tournament.

In Group B, Togo registered their first match of the tournament in win over Angola after winning all their three matches while Democratic Republic of Congo beat Botswana in another opening match of Group B.

The teams return to the same Tennis ground on Tuesday as each team seeks to finish top of either group to earn a promotion to Group C of ITF rankings.

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