2018 Lagos Open Tennis Championship: Emmanuel, Imeh bow out in first round

Just like it happened in the first leg, it is also panning out in the second leg of the 2018 Lagos Open Tennis Championship with some of the Nigeria’s best hands exiting the singles event in the first round.

The first victim of the day was Sylvester Emmanuel who was touted to give the foreigners a fight but suffered the same fate that befell him in the first leg. Having suffered a 6-0, 6-0 defeat to an Indian player and again yesterday on centre court, it was another Indian star – Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha, seeded number seven that shown the Nigerian star the exit door.

Despite putting up a good fight against the Indian, Emmanuel failed again to go beyond the first round with a 6-1, 6-4 loss to the Indian star.

Fighting his way from the qualifying round to the main draw, Joseph Imeh good run was thwarted again in the first round as the former national junior champion was bundled out by Tunisia’s Skander Mansouri.

With good display in the first set which ended in favour of the Tunisian at 6-4, Imeh failed to win a game in the second set to lose at 6-0 on court two.

Another former national junior star and is also a qualifier – Emmanuel Paul played his last game in the
competition after succumbing to the superiority of Nigeria-born Briton, Andu Mukhtar 6-4, 6-4.

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The fourth Nigerian who was shown the exit is Emmanuel Idoko. Idoko played against Swedish Lucas Renard
and it was the European star that laughed last with a 7-5, 6-2 win in an encounter which last for 70minutes on court three.

The only Nigerian that made it to the second round in the first leg could not progress yesterday as Oyinlomo Quadre was also beaten in the first round by Czech Republic’s Anna Siskova 6-0, 6-3.