Clash of greats in Real Insurance Kenya Open Tennis Championships

By OSCAR PILIPILI

Three-time winner and top seed Caroline Oduor and third seed Shufa Changawa are set to clash in the ladies single final in Real Insurance Kenya Open Tennis Championships at Nairobi Club on Sunday.

Oduor, a veteran of the national team, qualified for the deciding match following a labored 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-5 victory over junior player and fourth seed Stephanie Mbaya in semis on Saturday.

Changawa, who won the event in 2011 caused a major upset after she overcame Otula, also a previous winner, 6-4, 6-3 in their semi-finals encounter to sail through to final.

Changawa, who is now assured of at least Sh50000 in prize money expressed joy over her qualification to the final.

“My opponent didn’t give me hard time during the match. My game plan was to executive powerful drop shot and bring her to the net to make her tired,” said the 19-year-old Changawa.

“I know the final will be tough one but I hope to play better tomorrow and reclaim the trophy that I didn’t manage to defend last year,” she said.

Likewise, Oduor has predicted a tough final as the tournament comes to conclusion on Sunday.

“Tennis is a challenging sport and so I can’t predict results. I’ll play cautiously to get one at a time and hopefully win the match,” she said.

The match between Oduor and Mbaya was a close affair with each player holding onto her serve until up to 3-3 before the former broke the later to take 4-3 lead advantage after seven games.

Oduor maintained consistency bagging the next two games to seal the set at 6-3 during the match that lasted three hours.

Mbaya who is 16 years old regained composure in the second set and matched Oduor point to point before winning on tie break 7-6(3).

Oduor started well the third set winning the first three games to lead 3-0. At this point, Mbaya appeared to have lost hope but she recovered to narrow the gap to 4-3 and then 5-5 before Oduor bagged successive games to wrap up the set and the match at 7-5.

“It was tough match but I’m happy to have pushed a senior player like Oduor to three sets with very encouraging scores for me,” said Mbaya.

Mbaya said she was inspired by the tag of an underdog in the match.

“I managed to play well because as an underdog I had little to lose,” said the player who is now set to play in North African Circuit later this month.

The men’s singles final will see Jean Claude Gasigwa of Rwanda take on top seed Duncan Mugabe after they won respective semi-finals match.

Gasigwa used two hours 16 minutes to overcome Ugandan eight seed David Oringa 6-7(2), 6-2, 6-2 in one of the semis fixtures.

Mugabe defeated Edgar Kazembe of Zambia 6-3, 6-2 in 66 minutes to book a final date with Gasigwa.