The top ranked seed at the ongoing ITF junior tennis tournament, Hady El Kordy from Egypt booked his place in the semifinals after defeating India’s Gagan Rakesh Vimalin in straight sets (6-1 6-1). Kordy is ranked 191 in the world. However, Alina Valitova from St Kitts and Neves who is the top ranked seed in the women’s category (ranked 216) suffered a shock defeat to Mariam Ibrahim of Egypt. The other players in the semifinals are: Pranav Karthik (India), Tristan Stringer (USA), Michael Kouame (France), Beverley Nyangon (France) and India Fenieys (France). Rain disrupted the other quarterfinal game between Manuel Ennaciri (Morocco) and Shanice Roignot of France. The game will resume on Thursday morning. Despite a well-organized tournament, all Rwandan junior tennis players have been eliminated. They will have to try their chance once again next week when the second leg of the tournament kicks off. The semifinals (singles and doubles) of the ITF Junior Tournament will take place on Thursday, 17 February 2022 at Integrated Polytechnic Regional College (IPRC-Kigali) tennis grounds in Kicukiro. The finals take place on Friday at the same venue. The tournament has brought together 83 junior tennis players from 33 countries. The ITF World Tennis Tour is organized by the Rwanda Tennis Federation, International Tennis Federation and Rwanda’s Ministry of Sports. The tournament is meant to provide a launch pad for the best young players to go on and achieve success in the professional game. The top eight juniors at the end of the year go head-to-head at the prestigious season-ending ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals.
