Kenya's highest-ranked tennis player Angela Okutoyi leads a star-studded team to the Africa Junior Championship starting today in Sousse, Tunisia.
Okutoyi will fly the country's flag alongside Alicia Owegi and Cynthia Cheruto in the week-long tourney, where the Kenyan girls are the defending champions with the boys having failed to qualify.
Okutoyi has been busy with the Women's Futures Tour and has already visited Egypt and Morocco in three past three weeks as she steps up her preparation for the Sousse event.
"I have had good preparations and I have equally acclimatized to the conditions in North Africa. I can't wait for the tournament to get started to do the country proud,” said Okutoyi
The teen sensation said she will use the Africa Junior Championship as a build-up for the Junior French Open tournament in June.
“This is a good tournament as I hope to meet some of the players I will face during the French Open. I don't expect an easy competition though," she said.
Okutoyi played in the Junior Australian Open in January and she is determined to do well in the French Open on clay court surface in May.
"I have had good preparation on the clay court. It's a slower surface than hard court but once you adjust to it, you have a good chance of winning,” she revealed.
Team Kenya will be up against tough competition in the week-long event with Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Botswana, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Benin in contention.
The country's youngest Kenya Open champion said the North African players will be the toughest to beat
"They have a good crop of players and they will want to win in front of their fans," he added.
Alicia Owegi said they can cope with the pressure of them being the defending champions of the event.
“I believe we can cope with the pressure. We have a good team and we have trained hard and are relishing the challenge of playing."
Elsewhere, the Kenyan wheelchair team will have to go back to the drawing board after failing to qualify for the World Team Cup event in Portugal in May.
The Kenya men's and women's teams were placed fourth overall thus missing out on the one available slot with Great Britain qualifying in both categories.
