Alicia Owegi is set to grace the International Tennis Federation (ITF) junior tennis tournament in Accra, Ghana.
Owegi is the lone Kenyan taking part in the event and will be hoping to use the platform to improve her ranking.
Owegi expressed confidence that the two-week tournament in the Ghanaian capital will be key determiner in as far as game time is concerned.
"I'm delighted to be in Ghana and to play with some of the best juniors on the continent," she added.
Owegi played in the ITF circuit in Nairobi in January and February and feels she is in good shape for the two events. "I have played tournaments at home and I feel I am in good shape to go on a good run," added Owegi
The teen sensation, who arrived early in Ghana to acclimatise to the hardcourt surface, said she is ready for the tournament.
“I'm getting used to it. The balls travel faster and so I am eager for the competition and I am relishing the challenge of playing,” she said.
Owegi will face stiff competition from the likes of Great Britain's duo of Hepzibah Oluwadare and Lucy Weber; Nigeria's Marylose Edwards, Vania Dotse of Togo Naledi Manyube of South Africa and Austria's Mia Lepert.
Owegi hopes to play many other tournaments despite the challenge caused by Covid 19- pandemic across the continent.
"The tournaments are few and far between but I hope we will get a chance to play in many events as possible this year."
She represented Kenya at the All African Games in Rabat in 2019 in Morocco, where they finished fourth. She was also runners up at the East Africa zonal championship in the same year.
Elsewhere, Tennis Kenya (TK) administrator Nancy Nduku is hopeful the various tennis local events can be held this year despite the Presidential suspension of sporting activities last week.
The federation had lined up the Nairobi Open wheelchair next month as a warm up event for the Euro- Africa qualifiers slated for Portugal in May. She hopes by then, the Covid-19 restrictions will have been relaxed.
"We were really looking forward to the event and many other tournaments we had organised.We hope the situation can be reviewed next month for us to resume sporting activities,” added Nduku.
