ITF Announces Dates For 2019 Lagos Open Tennis

The International Tennis Federation, ITF, has released the dates for the 19th edition of the Lagos Open Tennis Championship.

The men’s and women’s hard-court event will run from October 7 to 20 at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan.

P.M. EXPRESS reports that the Lagos Open is formerly known as the Governor’s Cup Lagos Tennis Championship. It was last year that the tournament was changed to Lagos Open with the aim of repackaging the annual competition which is being staged to honour and celebrate sitting Governor of Lagos State since the government of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

This year’s championship will be a special one as it will be the first for the incoming Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu who will be sworn-in on 29 May.

The Lagos Open is a $100,000 tournament on the ITF World Tennis Tour and comprises two legs, which will hold for a week each, with $50,000 ($25K for the men’s and women’s event each) the prize-money for each week. The first leg will hold from October 7 – 13, while the second leg will get underway immediately, from the 14 – 20 October.

It will be the first time the event will run under the new ITF World Tennis Tour format, which was introduced in March, 2017 and implemented this year.

Under this new format, the tournament will be known as M25 Lagos for the men’s event and W25 Lagos for the women’s. M and W denote the gender and 25, the prize-money.

Last year, in the men’s singles, Tom Jomby of France won the first leg, while Britain’s Jack Draper, who was 16 years old at the time, clinched the singles title in the second leg, beating Tom Jomby in an epic final.

Outgoing Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was at the finals of the second leg where he presented the trophy to the winner of the Men’s Singles.

The Lagos Open is the follow up to the Abuja Open, three-week of top class action starting with the Tombim Open, Dayak Championship and the GSL Open a combined $75,000 + Hospitality prize-money event which is part of the ITF World Tour.