Nigeria’s duo of Sylvester Emmanuel and Joseph Imeh will be in action today as the first round of the GSKL Open taking place in Abuja is scheduled for conclusion.
Emmanuel and Imeh have been Nigeria’s top two players in the last few years, swapping rankings intermittently on the Nigeria Tennis Federation rankings, and they saw off their opponents in the final qualifying round yesterday with former Spain-based player Emmanuel rallying from a set down to see off Dan Hiddleson of the USA 4-5, 6-3 (10 -4), while Imeh was peerless in a 6-0, 6-3 triumph over Serb Igor Banicevic.
Both players have experienced contrasting fortunes in the first two of the three-phase ITF World Tour event with Imeh bowing out in the first round of the Tombim Open where Emmanuel reached the second round and it was an opposite performance sheet for the players in the Dayak Championship which was rounded off on Sunday.
Musa Mohammed was Nigeria’s sole flag bearer on in Tuesday’s singles and he fell short of making the second round following a loss to American Luke Gamble.
The other single matches decided saw 14 year-old Brit Mukhtar Andu succumbed to Chinese-American Michael Zhu while Guy Iradukuda of Burundi advanced with a win over Mikhail Pervolarakis of Greece.
11 other singles matches are scheduled for today.