History was made at the weekend in Nigerian tennis when a nursing mother, Ronke Akingbade won the Ladies Singles title of the 35th edition of the annual Central Bank of Nigeria Senior Tennis Tournament held at the Tennis Courts of the National Stadium Surulere, Lagos.
Unseeded Akingbade who came in through the qualifiers having been off active tennis due to child birth played with so much precision and agility to despatch a much younger Blessing Samuel in two straight sets in the semi finals before out-stroking Christy Agugbom in the grand final played at the centre court of the National stadium 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 to win the title.
She went home with a cash prize of N700,000.
In the men’s single, seed four Henry Atseye emerged victorious when he defeated Clifford Enosorogbe 7-5, 6 retired. Atseye also went home with the cash prize of N700,000,
The pair of Abdumumuni Babalola and Shehu Lawal, won the men’s doubles event when they beat the pair of Samuel Omoile and Nonso Madueke 6-3, 6-0 in the final while women singles runners-up, Christ Agugbom paired with Blessing Samuel to lift the women’s doubles trophy by beating Ibrahim Omotayo and Sarah Adegoke 7-5 6-2.
With the wheelchair tennis event included among the titles competed for at the 2013 edition of the Central Bank of Nigeria Senior Tennis extravaganza, men’s singles seed 2, Wasiu Yusuf outclassed tournament top seed, Alex Adewale whom he defeated 7-6, 6-1 to win the men’s singles title and thereby emerged as the first player to win the Central Bank of Nigeria wheelchair tennis title while women top seed, Remilekun Basanya beat women seed two Oluwatoyin Dawodu 5-3, 5-3 to emerge as the women’s champion.
The CBN Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido in his address read by Mr Olakanmi Gbadamosi, Director, Procurement and Support Services, expressed satisfaction on the quality of opposition in this year’s championship which was aimed at selecting Nigeria’s representatives to the forthcoming Africa zone 111 Davies Cup tournament holding from May13-19 in Cairo, in the Egyptian capital.
