History-making Okutoyi storms W25 quarters

Kenya’s Angella Okutoyi on Wednesday continued to amaze on the clay courts of Nairobi after stunning her highly-ranked opponent Viktoria Morvayova from Slovakia 6-1,6-3 to qualify for the singles quarter-finals for the first time ever in an ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour (W25) tournament at the Nairobi Club.

The Kenya Open 2018 and 2022 champion, also qualified for semi-finals in doubles with Burundian partner Sada Nahimana after upsetting Italian fourth seeds Diletta Cherubini/Martina Colmegna 6-3, 6-3.

In the first set in singles, Okutoyi won four breakpoints against Morvayova's one.

The second set was tightly contested as the the Slovak sought to salvage the match. However, her efforts proved futile as Okutoyi kept the momentum, chalking up crucial points before pulling away completely at 3-3. Okutoyi had an ace in each set, the only ones in the match.

The 2022 Junior Wimbledon doubles winner, who took one hour and 22 points to dispatch the Slovak, is ranked at 943 in the WTA Singles rankings and the only Kenyan in top-1,000. Morvayova,22, ranks 427 places above Okutoyi at 516.

Okutoy's historic second-round win in a W25 event came a day after she bundled out Indian qualifier Teja Tirunelveli 6-2, 6-4 in the first round of the week-long tournament.

“I was trying to hold myself, especially in the first set and it did work well and I tried to break her serves which worked well at the beginning. I was just trying to put more extra balls on the court because I knew she would make a lot of errors. In the second set, I feel like I started making a lot of errors, that's why I was 1-4 down," said after defeating Tirunelveli.

She added: "But I just told myself that I’m better and I needed to just play my game and try to stay into the points. I feel like I was doing too much sometimes and I feel that really helped me because I got my confidence back and I was able to hold myself and get her serve and that’s why I managed to close the gap."

Okutoyi said she was happy to get the win against Tirunelveli “because the first matches are always the tough ones”. I’m happy that I overcame this challenge and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow to play a better game," said after the first round win. True to fact, Okutoyi,19, showed class to stop the Slovak.  

Okutoyi is the first Kenyan player - man or woman - to win a professional singles event since Paul Wekesa achieved the feat at Andorra Challenger in 1994 (she won W15 Monastir in Tunisia in July).

But, the furthest stage the Auburn University student had reached in singles at a W25 event was the second round in Florence and Jackson both in October in USA and Nairobi last week, so sailing to the quarter-finals is quite an achievement as she continues to make her baby steps in to professional tennis.