Safwat rules Tombim Abuja Open, as Dayak Championship serves off

Egyptian Mohamed Safwat over the weekend emerged champion of the second leg of the Tombim Abuja Open with a 6-4, 4-2 (ret.) win over top seed, Aldin Setkic Bosnia as tennis fever spreads on with the start of the Dayak Tennis Championship.

 The road to the final was rough and tough for the 26-year-old Safwat, who played three sets in all his four previous matches on his way to the final the highlight of his tortuous road was the energy-sapping 2hrs 58mins win over American Nicolas Meister in the semi-final.

However, mother luck shone on the world no 272 third-seeded Egyptian as he did not even need to stay on court for a third of that period before sealing the title he fell short of winning in the first leg losing to Dutchman Antal van Der Duim in the final.

The game went with the serves until the ninth game when Safwat got a break and he held on to it serving out the set 6-4. A nagging back strain forced the big Bosnian to quit in the second set of which he trailed 4-2 following a break by Safwat at the opening game of the set.

Meanwhile, hostilities at the National Tennis Centre, Abuja continued as the main draw of the Dayak Championship, another ITF Pro Circuit tournament begins Monday with no fewer than 40 players from 25 countries featuring.

Ifedayo Akindoju, the MD/CEO of Dayak Nigeria Limited expressed desire to use the platform to turn Nigeria the capital of tennis in Africa with the regular attraction of global superstars in the future.

He however appealed to the sports ministry through the Nigeria Tennis Federation to help in getting the dollar prize-money at the official rate.

"Together with the Tombim tournament, we spent N32m to get $100, 000 prize-money for this two tournaments. If we get the money at N200 to $1 which is the official rate from the Central Bank of Nigeria, we would have saved around N12m which would have gone into another tournament," Akindoju, who is also the boss of the FCT Tennis Association, pointed.