Double joy for Angella Okutoyi in W25 tourney

Kenya’s Angella Okutoyi yesterday shocked sixth-seed Miriana Tona from Italy 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 on a day full of upsets at the ongoing ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour (W25) tournament at the Nairobi Club.

It was double joy for Okutoyi as she also qualified for the doubles finals with partner Sada Nahimana. They earned a hard-fought win against second seeds Maria Gonzalez (Colombia)/Ksenia Laskutova (Russia) 6-2, 3-6, 11-9.

The East Africans will face third-seeds Jessie Aney (USA)/Lena Papadakis (Germany) in the final on Friday.

Aney/Papadakis stunned top-seeds Valeriya Strakhova (Ukraine)/Fanny Ostlund (Sweden) 6-1, 6-3.

This is Okutoyi’s second consecutive doubles final in a W25 tournament after losing to Strakhova/Ostlund in straight sets with Japanese partner Nagomi Higashitani in the first W25 Nairobi tournament at Karen Country Club last Sunday.

In other quarter-final matches in singles held on Thursday, Ostlund (seed eight) upset top-seed Valeriya Strakhova 6-1, 6-2, Frenchwoman Lucie Nguyen (unseeded) surprised second-seeded Nahimana (second) 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 and Papadakis (unseeded) humbled Emma Lene (seventh) 4-6, 7-6, 6-3.

Strakhov won singles and doubles with partner Ostlund at Karen, meaning the Ukrainian will miss two finals this week. 

For Okutoyi, the 2022 Wimbledon Junior doubles champion, it is the first time to get into the singles semi-finals of the tournament with USD25,000 (Sh3.8 million) prize money.

The Kenyan had to sweat to earn the semi-final ticket. The 19-year-old fought hard in the first set, only to go down 6-4 after leading twice. However, she showed her mettle in the second set to level 1-1 after blanking the Italian 6-0 games. 

The Kenya Open 2018 and 2022 champion led three times in the deciding set, where Tona gave as much as she got, equalising at 1-1, 2-2 and 3-3 but she stayed focused to chalk up the famous victory after a grueling two hours and eight on the clay courts.

“In my singles match, I felt like I was so composed from start till the end. Even when I had lost my serve in the first set and could not hold her serve and lost the set, I kept my composure and just kept fighting till the end," Okutoyi said.

" I feel like my serve was my weapon and my ground strokes too. I had good margins and precision on my shots which helped me a lot,” she added.

On the doubles, Okutoyi said: “I feel like we had a good start and we still kept doing the right stuff, but lost the servers game and that really cost us a bit. However, we kept our composure and kept fighting till the end.”

Next up for Okutoyi in the singles semis is Nguyen, with the winner playing either Ostlund or Papadakis in the final.

In the latest WTA Singles ranking for the quarter-finalists, Strakhova occupies position 111, followed by Ostlund (232), Nahimana (341), Tona (410), Lene (430), Lena Papadakis (444), Nguyen (527) and Okutoyi (943).

In an earlier interview with Nation Sport, Okutoyi said, “I want to get as many points as possible because my goal before 2023 ends is to break into the top-500.”