RUSSIA-BASED female tennis star, Melissa Ifidzhen said she looks forward to dominating the Central Bank of Nigeria Open Tennis Championship for more years to come after successfully defending her women's singles and doubles title.
Melissa emerged women's singles champions of the 38th edition of the competition with a dominant 6-3, 6-2 win over top seed Christy Agugbom in the final at the Tennis court, National Stadium, Lagos, the same player she defeated in last year's final.
Melissa also partnered Sarah Adegoke to beat Agugbom and Blessing Samuel 6-0, 6-1 for the women's doubles crown.
"I came for this tournament from Egypt and my only intention was to win like I did last year and I'm happy I achieved my goal. Next year I will aim to do the same, "she said.
"Thank you Lagos and big thank you to the Nigeria Tennis Federation for making the CBN Open 2016 happen. Big thank you to everyone that came out to support their wards, friends and fans in general. Honored to win.
Moses Michael emerged men's singles champions after a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 win over Sylvester Emmanuel for his first title at the event.
"The last Tombim and Dayak ITF Futures really helped me because it keeps me in good shape and it showed in the way I played in this tournament," said Michael, who was beaten in last year's final by Thomas Otu.
Both winners pocketed N700, 000 each while the finalists got N500, 000 each
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said the standard of the tournament reflect that. The future of Nigerian tennis is high.
Emefiele, who was represented by the CBN Director in charge of Capacity Development, Mrs Victoria Chizoba appealed to corporate bodies and stakeholders to pool efforts at raising the profile of tennis in Nigeria.
Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) president, Sani Ndanusa expressed appreciation of the apex bank stressing, among others, that the tournament is of the great value to the players through its economic empowerment.
Lawal Shehu and Abdulmumin Babalola defeated Moses Michael and Christian Paul 6-4, 6-4 to win the men's doubles title.
Alex Adewale and Foluke Shittu beat Wasiu Yusuf and Kafayat Omisore for the wheelchair category titles.
The NTF also honoured its late board member, Prof. Philomena Ikulayo with a post-humous award.
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