Lagos Governor’s Cup Tennis: Nigerians through to quarterfinals in men’s doubles

• Madueke, others beaten
Some Nigerian male players have fought their ways into the quarterfinals of the doubles event of the first leg (Futures 5) in the on-going 16th Governor’s Cup Lagos Tennis Championship.

The duo of Henry Atseye and Enosoregbe Clifford will play against Tunisia’s Moez Echargui and Egyptian Karim-Mohamed Maamoun in today’s quarterfinals at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan.

Also, Nigeria’s Thomas Otu will pair Kofi Tsatsu Segbedzie of Ghana to slug it out against Spanish Lopez-Perez Enrique and Boy Westerhof of The Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the quest of some Nigerian players to make impact in the singles event, especially the men’s category is getting tougher by the day, as some of them who made it to the second round will have uphill task on courts ahead the quarterfinals.

Christopher Anefu will play against tournament number 3 from Egypt, Karim-Mohamed, while Henry Atseye will face Boy Westerhof, who is number six seed.

Clifford Enosoregbe will battle Maciej Smola from Poland, while Sylvester Emmanuel will face number seven seed, Alexis Klegou from Benin Republic.

In other second round pairings in the men’s singles, number one seed, Spain’s Enrique will play against Duncan Mugabe of Uganda, while number five seed, Mina Gianni from France will face Pavel Mirobyan from Russia.

In the women’s singles, top seed Valetini Grammatikopoulou from Greece will play Indian Prarthana Thombare. Number 2 seed, Tadeja Majeric from Slovakia will battle Venugopal Talachar from India.

The results of matches of the first round concluded yesterday were not favourable to Nigerian players. Moses Michael failed to live up to expectations as he was humbled by France’s Calvin Hemery in straight set of 6-3,6-2.

Moses confessed in the post match interview that the French player was better than him. “I lost to a player who did not allow me to play at all. I tried my best but he played better than me and there was nothing I could do to help the situation,” said Moses.

Another French player, Gianni Mina beat Umaru Balami in 6-0,6-0 game. Nonso Madueke lost 3-6,0-6 to Polish Karol Drzewiecki. Albert Bisong Bikom lost 1-6, 0-6 to Indian Sasi Kumar Mukund. Nonso Madueke was beaten 3-6, 0-6 by Polish Karol Drzewiecki.