Kenyans eliminated from Africa Nations Tennis tourney

Kenyan players on Wednesday crashed out of the Africa Nations Tennis Championship at the Nairobi Club.

Siblings Ismael and Shufaa Changawa as well as Sheil Kotecha all lost their respective quarter-final matches ending the country’s prospects of a medal at the continental event.

Ismail, who is the country’s number one player and seeded sixth at the competition, was handed a 6-2, 6-0 loss by top seed Amine Ahouda of Morocco in the first men’s quarterfinal match.

Sheil Kotecha was up next on court against second seed Moez Echargui of Tunisia but despite putting up a strong fight, the home player went down 7-6(1), 6-1. Kenya’s hopes rested on Shufaa, who had crashed Angie Sia of Ivory Coast, in the previous round.

However, North African players underlined their dominance in the competition as Morocco’s Chiraz Bechir beat Shufaa 6-1, 6-3 to sail into the last four.

The top seed will come up against her compatriot Diae El Jardi in Thursday’s semi-final, after the latter overcame seventh seed Nancy Onya of Democratic Republic of Congo 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 in their last eight clash.

Shufaa noted that her opponent made little mistakes and also capitalised on her weak forehand which almost cost her victory in her first round clash.

“I lost to a better player today (yesterday) and she totally took advantage of the many unforced errors. I wanted to make it to atleast the last four and it is really painful to go out at this stage,” Shufaa told Daily Nation Sport.

The Kenya open champion started brightly taking the first match with some powerful serve that stunned her opponent.

However, she was unable to build on the momentum as Bechir came back stronger to level at 1-1 and then went on to dominate the rest of the set, winning almost all 50-50 serves at the net.

The second set followed the same sequence as Shufaa desperately tried to come back into the game cheered on by the home supporters. However, the gap in class showed and Moroccan calmly saw out the set to claim the win in 74 minutes.

“I think she (Shufaa) is an excellent player and can only get better by playing more tournaments. I had a bad start but was able to recover and that helped my confidence grow,” Bechir said.

Ahouda, who led Morocco to qualify for the Davis Cup Group II competition early this year, showed his class as he outclassed Ismail in their clash.

In the Under- 14 Masters competition at Public Service Club, Kenya’s Ryan Randiek lost 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2 to South Africa’s Carl Roothman