Africa Junior champion Angela Okutoyi's gallant run at the Junior Australian Open ended after she lost to Serbian Lola Radivojevic 6-2 , 6-3 in Melbourne this morning.
Okutoyi got off to a poor start, losing her serve and trailing 1-0 but bounced back to win the second game to tie the match at 1-1. The Serbian, however, had greater agility and broke Okutoyi three times to race to a 4-1 lead.
Okutoyi, ranked 60th in the world, rallied in the sixth game to reduce the gap to 4-2 but the Serb engaged a higher gear to win the final two games of the set.
Radivojevic came out firing in the second set, breaking Okutoyi' serve and racing to a 4-0 lead . Okutoyi managed to fight back winning the next two games but the dominant Serb ended any hopes of a comeback with hard-hitting serves to close out the game and progress to the quarterfinals.
The African U18 champion exits the stage as the first Kenyan woman to reach the third round in singles of any event at a Grand Slam.
