Aina wins first SNEPCo Junior Tennis title

A mother’s love was bang on target, PEP talks from her mother, Mrs. Aina motivated Goodnews Aina, to her first triumph at the 2024 NNPC-SNEPCo Junior Tennis Championship, at the weekend, in Warri, Delta State.
  

The talks by Mrs Aina before, during and after the match helped her ward to win the long rallies against her more accomplished teammate, to win a close first set. The expected fight back from Gloria came but Aina recovered to take the final set by the same score.
 
At the end of the game, Aina said: “My mother told me I should never lose another final again, saying that I have lost too many finals.

“I am very glad I made her happy.”

In the Boys’ U-16 category, Dubem Amasiani from Abuja, defeated Gbolahan Olawale, the National Youth Games champion, to win his 25th title in all competitions.

The Boys’ U-14 event was won by Isa Yahaya from Lagos, who beat Daniel Udemekong from the Port Harcourt-based Kodian Tennis Academy, while Mofi Atilola gave Lagos her second title at the championship with a straight sets victory over Success Godwin from Ekiti State, in the Girls’ U-14 category.

Speaking after the game, Director, International Tennis Academy (ITA), the organisers of the competition, Godwin Kienka, said the tournament which held at the PTI Staff Club was taken to Warri to motivate the young boys and girls in the community to look at sports generally and tennis in particular as windows of opportunity to change their fortune for the better.