Olivier Kigotho and Sneha Kotecha lost to Canadian pair of Nazar Achour and Razvan Baiant 6-4, 6-4 in the doubles category of the ITF Junior tennis tournament at the Nairobi Club.
The Kenyan pair began the match strongly and broke the Canadian pair’s serve to lead 2-0. Achour and Baiant then bounced back as they rattled several winners to tie the match at 2-2. The next four games went to serve with each winning to tie the match at 4-4.
The Canadian duo then broke Kenyan resistance in the ninth game to lead 5-4 before serving out the match to win the opening set. The second set was competitive with play going to serve in the opening eight games with the scores tied at 4-4
Kigotho and Kotecha then suffered a lapse of concentration when they hit a return to trail 5-4 while the Canadian pair closed out the set in the tenth game to advance to the semi-finals. Kotecha believes home players will get better with more tournaments being played. “We are making steady progress and if we can get more tournaments we will definitely challenge for the title,” he said.
In the singles matches played yesterday, seventh seed Esther Adeshina of Great Britain beat Adithya Karuntare of Sri Lanka 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-2. Top seed Avomo Ellla of Gabon defeated Samar Qaedizadeh of Canada 6-4 , 6-3, Mariam Mujawimana of Burundi beat Jonea Bach of Great Britain 6-3, 4-6, 7-5
Ahimnayu Vannemreddy of India beat Anthony Ivanov of Bulgaria 6-5, 6-7 (5), 6-3. Zlatan Palazov of Bulgraia beat Ying Ze Chen 6-0, 6-2.
