American Olivier Crawford and Swiss Damien Wenger will face off in the final of the first week of Rwanda Open M25 which is underway in Kigali. The pair booked tickets to the final after beating Ukrainian Ursu Vadym and Zimbabwean Benjamin Lock in the semifinals on Saturday. READ ALSO: Rwanda Open M25: Favorites Crawford, Sharma qualify for quarterfinals The first week of Rwanda Open M25 started on Monday, September 4, and concludes on Sunday September 10 at Kigali Ecology Tennis Club. Wenger was the first to reach the final after overcoming Zimbabwean Benjamin Lock in two sets 6-2 7-6¹¹ in an entertaining semifinal. Pre-tournament favorite Crawford joined the Swiss for Sunday’s decisive final after a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Vadym in another tight last four encounter. Wenger will go into Sunday’s final in positive spirit after winning a silverware in the doubles on Saturday. He teamed up with France’s Corentin Denolly to beat African duo Orly Guy Iradukunda (Burundi) and Abraham Asaba (Ghanaian) 4-6 7-6⁵ 10-5 in the final. With the first week of Rwanda Open M25 coming to a close on Sunday, preliminaries have already started for the second week of the tournament which runs from September 11-17. All games will take place at Kigali Ecology Tennis Club. Each week will involve 32 players including 20 top ranked players are exempted from preliminary stages due to the fact that they are ranked below 1000 on ITF/ATP ranking while eight others are made to play the preliminary games for them to progress to the first round. Four remaining players are granted wild cards to be included in the competition.
