Gov’s Cup: Babalola, Lawal crash

By John Egbokhan
It was a bad day for Davis Cup duo of Abdulmumuni Babalola and Lawal Shehu as they crashed out of the men’s singles of the Governor’s Cup Futures I holding at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan.

With no international tournament under their belts this year, it was not a surprise that the duo lost their respective first round matches yesterday.

Unlike their rivals, Nigerian tennis players are an endangered species, who year after year, only get to play the Governor’s Cup, which is the only tournament that afford them computer ranking points.

At a time that their foreign counterparts are busy playing a minimum of 16 Futures tournaments in the year, Nigerian players have only the Lagos Governor’s Cup to play for ranking points and prize money.

So when he stepped on the Lord Rumens Court for his first round match against Alessandro Petrone of Italy, not few tennis tennis faithful expected the Nigerian number one player to progress.

Babalola, who was given a wild card by the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF)  lost the match in straight sets of 6-7, 4-6 to the Italian, ranked 816 in the world.

Petrone took the opener in tie-break and stepped up the gear a bit to finish the second set 6-4 and qualify for the second round holding tomorrow.

In another match that produced a Nigerian casualty, Borja Rodriguez of Spain easily brushed aside a match-rusty Shehu in quick sets of 6-0, 6-2, a result that means that Nigeria’s top players are out of the $15,000 prize money tournament. It is not fault of theirs.

In the ladies singles, Michaela Frilicka of Germany, with a singles ranking of 1136 defeated Nigeria’s Rita Obasigie in quick sets of 6-0, 6-0, to berth in the second round of the $25,000 tournament.