Mary Udoffa on Sunday emerged as the girl's singles champion of the Zenith Bank Next Generation Masters following a hard-fought title match against Etoro Bassey of the GEUF Academy in Uyo.
The Lokoja-based winner who, like her opponent, was making her second bid for the crown trailed for most of the match until she squared up at 6-6 in the pro set. Tied again at 8-8 the match was decided by a 10-point tiebreak which Udoffa won 10- 8.
The boys' title was won by Joseph Jimoh from the Aurum Academy in Abuja who had a pretty straight-forward 9 - 3 pro set victory over Henry Aina from Ondo State.
Aina who had rallied from behind to beat John Peter of Lagos in the semifinals, was out of his depth in the finals trailing 0-4 before getting on the scoreboard. Jimoh was however too solid to allow another comeback and dropped only two more games before sealing his victory.
FEMILADIPO PHOTOGRAPHYThe tournament which features the best prospects to become senior champions has become the stepping stone to stardom at the national level.
The guest of honour, Mr Ifeanyi Ezeokoli, commended the players for the very high standard of tennis skills they displayed and urged them not to rest on their oars until they become Grand Slam champions. Ezeokoli who is the Group MD of Incel Tourism, like he did last year, gifted the players N500,000 Naira.
Director of the International Tennis Academy, and organiser of the Masters, Godwin Kienka, 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. 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.
