Okutoyi bites the dust in South Africa tourney

Kenya's Angela Okutoyi was on Tuesday knocked out of the race for J2 Stellenbosch title in Coetzenburg Stadium in South Africa.

A day after earning a hard-fought 2-1 first round win over South Africa's Suzanie Pretorius on the first day of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour Juniors tournament, Okutoyi had no answers to highly-ranked Russian Yaroslava Bartashevich.

Okutoyi (160 in the ITF Junior Ranking) surrendered against 56th-placed Bartashevich in straight sets of 6-2, 6-1 in the second round.

On the first day of the tournament, Okutoyi was made to sweat for the victory against 284-ranked Pretorius.

The 2018 Kenya Open champion took the first set 7-5, dropped the ball in the second set 3-6 before regrouping in 6-3.

Okutoyi came into the first round match of the second tournament buoyed by last week’s semi-final finish in J3 Stellenbosch.

She had defeated South African Naledi Manyube 6-4, 6-2, Zhanel Rustemova from Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-4 and Czech Amelie Smejkalova 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 in the first three rounds last week before being stopped by top-seeded Tatyana Nikolenko from Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-3 in semi-finals.

Pretorius was eliminated in the second round in J3 Stellenbosch. She had seen off Austrian Mia Liepert 6-1, 7-6 before losing against Smejkalova 7-6, 6-3 in the second round.  

In the second tournament in Stellenbosch, which was a grade higher than J3, Okutoyi was unseeded. Bartashevich is seeded third.