Adeleye Wins Apex Tennis Tournament
Photo 1: L-R, Mr. Abraham Efemena (As pex CEO), Adeleye Daniel ( Champion), Abua Canice ( runners-up), Orunene Yakubu (3rd place winner), Alabi-Hundeyin (Apex Chief Operating Officer)
Photo 2 : Mr. Abraham Efemena, Apex CEO
Nigeria seed 2 ranked Tennis player, Adeleye Daniel, a member of the Nigeria Davis Cup Division one qualifiers bound team to Morocco,, on Tuesday, defeated Nigeria’s top seed, the country’s current no 1 ranked player, Abua Canice to win the maiden edition of the Apex Tennis tournament held at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club., Tafawa Balewa Square ( TBS), Lagos Island.
With a set down, Adeleye came from behind to beat Abua Canice 9-6 and pocketed the #2 m star prize while Abua got #1.5m for emerging as the runners-up.
The third position went to 18 year old lady, Orunene Yakubu who surprisingly out-stroked a male player, Kehinde Adesokan by beating him 2-1 ( 0-4, 4-1, 9-4 in the 3rd place match and got #1m for her efforts,
Sponsor of the championship, Mr. Abraham Efemena, who also plays tennis, said the championship was created as a means of encouraging and supporting Nigeria Tennis players to have more tournaments that will keep them going and busy throughout the year, noting that the players have been struggling with few tournaments every year which is not encouraging.
Besides inadequate tournaments, the philanthropist also noted that sports equipments are too expensive in the country these days and that gave birth to the encouraging sum of #2 m, #1.5m and #I’m Prize money awarded to the first, second and third place winners respectively besides the champions additional giant trophy.
He added that the gesture is also aimed at helping the players get the needed equipment for training.
Mr Abraham appreciated the participation of top ranked Nigeria Tennis players like Canice Abua, Adeleye Daniel, Michael Emmanuel, Abubakar Yusuf, Lucky Danjuma and Franklin Jimoh and others
in the tournament which he said, contributed immensely in boosting the profile of the two-day championship that took place at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Tafawa Balewa Square, Onikan, Lagos.
Due to the encouraging turn-out and the; standard of Tennis displayed during the tournament, Mr.Abraham promised that the championship has come to stay.
