Davies Cup player wins VC's Cup

Kumasi, April 25, GNA - Fred Egyir, a Davies Cup player emerged winner of the third edition of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Tennis Open dubbed the Vice Chancellor's Cup, when he recorded a two straight-sets win over Eric Atobaba, a member of the Ghana Tennis Association (GTA) in the final match of the men's singles in Kumasi. Egyir, 24 and also a member of the GTA proved his superiority over Atobaba throughout the match and it came as no surprise when he beat him 4-2, 4-1 to lift the giant VC's trophy at stake.
He also in addition received a cash prize of 1.8 million cedis while Atobaba who was a semi-finalist in last year's tournament took home cash prize of 1.2 million cedis donated by Ecobank in collaboration with the Department of Sport and Exercise Science, which organised and sponsored the tournament.
Richard Tetteh of the University of Ghana, Legon and Sadiq Zakaria of Ashanti Tennis Club were each given 700,000 cedis for reaching the semi-finals.
On their way to the finals, Egyir beat Zakaria 4-1, 4-2 while Atobaba sailed through with a 4-1, 5-4 defeat of Tetteh.
The final match started on a vigorous note with Atobaba looking for revenge to compensate for his two losses to Egyir recently, but it was the latter who had the better part of the exchanges as he powered home some deft forehand shots which the south-paw, Atobaba had no answers to in the first set.
Determined to come back into the match in the second set, Atobaba resorted to some power-packed array of ground-strokes, however, it was Egyir whose combination of consistently accurate first serves and phenomenal speed around the court sealed the victory for him. In the men's doubles, Michael Nortey of GTA who paired with Owusu Menford of Accra Tennis Club beat Sadiq Zakari and Mohammed Zakari, both of Ashanti Tennis Club 7-5 in the final match to win the 600,000 cash prize at stake with the latter settling for 400,000 cedis.
In the women's singles event, Emma Kodjoe, another Davies Cup player and member of the GTA lived up to expectation as the women's top seed of the tournament when she made light work of Abigail O. Mensah, a student of the Winneba Tennis Academy in the final match w8ith a result of 6-3, 6-1 to win the trophy at stake and a cash prize of 1.2 million cedis whilst the latter had 900,000 cedis.
The women's doubles event was called off at the last minute due to the inability of the organisers to find an available court for the competition, which involved about 100 participants.