Team Nigeria’s Barakat Quadri, Mcleod, Osewa continue impressive run

Yesterday was an exciting day for Team Nigeria at the 2016 ITF West/Central Africa 18 and Under Circuit in Lome, Togo, as six of its players progressed to the next stage of the tournament.

Barakat Quadri, who is aiming to be the first player to win three-straight singles title in the world ranking event, continued to dish out tennis lessons to her opponents as she whipped Chakira Dermane of Togo 6-0, 6-0.

The 14-year-old Quadri, who is about to end his year-long ITF scholarship in Morocco, will meet the winner of the tie between Bissola Lassissi of Benin and Trisha Vinod of India.

She is now just three wins away from winning a third successive title, which before now had not been achieved by any player in the West and Central Africa ITF Junior Circuit.

Nigeria’s dominance over the hosts continued as Angel Mcleod also defeated home girl, Serena Geli, 6-0, 6-1 to hit the last-eight where she will confront second seed, Marine Job of France, who defeated Team Nigeria’s Venus Ubiebi.

Toyin Asogba was another Nigerian that tasted defeat, with the Lagos-based player succumbing to Maxine Ng of Malaysia, the number two seed.In the boy’s singles, Nigerian players proved that they are not in the same class with their Ghanaian counterparts as Michael Osewa beat Michael Nartey 6-2, 6-3, while Christopher Bulus and Christopher Itodo also emerged victorious  in their second round clashes with Ronald Totimeh 6-1, 6-0 and Richard Addo 6-0, 6-2.