Africa junior champion Angela Okutoyi has set her sights on the Wimbledon Championship after crashing out of the second round of the French Open.
The country's youngest Kenya Open champion will have a two-week break to prepare for the grass-court tournament and says her early exit from the French Open will help her focus better.
“I am hoping to improve on my performance and acclimatize to the Wimbledon Championships, which is played on the grasscourt surface. This will take a while to adjust,” added Okutoyi.
Okutoyi won her first-round match of the French Junior Open, beating Angie Van Impe of Belgium 7-6, 6-4 but lost to the top seed Petra Marcinko of Croatia 6-2, 6-4 on Monday. Okutoyi said she has several areas to work on her game ahead of the world's popular tennis grand slam tournament.
"There are areas of my game which I need to work on and with the coaches seconded from the junior tennis grand slam programme, I believe I will be in good shape," added Okutoyi.
Okutoyi's coach Thuku Rogoi commended her for her performance considering she is making her debut in the French Open.
"Winning a match is a good start and to lose to the top seed in the second round and pushing close in the second set is a good indication that she is headed in the right direction,” noted Rogoi.
Elsewhere, a six-man provisional team has started training for the Euro -Africa Davis Cup Group 3 encounter slated for Algiers, Algeria in August.
The team of Ismael Changawa, Ibrahim Kibet, Derrick Ominde, Albert Njogu, and Kevin Cheruiyot who is based in Australia will be expected on June 10 in training at the Nairobi Club. The team will be reduced to four players by mid-July.
Team Kenya will be up against Algeria, Benin, Ghana, Mozambique, and Rwanda. Madagascar have withdrawn from the tournament.
Two teams will be promoted to Group 2 for next year's competition. Kenya narrowly missed out on qualification, finishing third with Benin and Egypt finishing in the top two.
Speaking during a training session, Changawa said they are motivated to go one place better than last year.
"We are relishing the challenge we missed out on qualification by a whisker last year and this year we are going all out to be in the top two," he added.
