America-Based Nigerian Player Predicts Mad Rush When Lagos Open Becomes Challenger Series

SUNDAY AKINTOYE

One of the emerging tennis players featuring in the ongoing Lagos Open Tennis 2018 has predicted that when the tournament finally becomes a Challenger Series in the calendar of International Tennis Federation (ITF), many players around the world will be rushing to play in the competition.

This was the prediction of Ayeni Olukayode Alafia Damina, a Nigerian, who is representing the United States in the ongoing tournament at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan.

To Damina, whose father is from Jose in Plateau State, but was born and living in California in US, the Lagos Open Tennis, which was formerly called the Governor’s Cup Lagos Tennis, is gradually growing and will continue to grow, adding that between 2015, the last time he came for the competition and now, there has been professional touches in the packaging and organisation of the ITF Futures in Lagos.

The Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the competition headed by Chief Pius Akinyelure, said during the unveiling of the new-look and repackaged Governor’s Cup to Lagos Open Tennis that the championship will soon become a Challenger Series, as there will be a transitional period from now till year 2020 when the competition will attain the new status.

“There has been great improvement since last time I was here in 2015. The organisation is good and the crowd at the club as well. You can’t believe that some tournaments I attended in the US and Canada could not boast of the fans that I have been seen here in Lagos. This shows that the organisers are trying.

“I want to say again that when this competition becomes a Challenger, the Lagos Open will then become more competitive and attract tough players around the world than we are seeing now. Many foreign players will find Lagos Open as a destination to improve on their career and gain points,” said the 19-year-old player, who named Gaël Sébastien Monfils, a French professional tennis player.

Damina said he loves Monfils and he used to play with him in training back in the US. He, however, expressed his happiness playing in a tournament organised in his native country.

“I’m so happy playing this tournament second time. There is high level of competitiveness in the Lagos Open. This is so because any tournament in the range of $25,000 always see tough players coming around to play.”

On his performance in the first round of Futures 5 of the Lagos Open Tennis 2018, he said: “I didn’t do badly judging from the time I arrived the country two days before I played. The problem is due largely to my failure to aclimatize very well. But I was so happy playing in the tournament “