By VICTOR OKOYE

Oyinlomo Quadri, one of Nigeria’s top female tennis players, says she has lost both the passion and motivation to play in tennis tournaments organised in the country.

Quadri who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja said she needed time to reflect on her performance and re-examine her goals and priorities.

NAN reports that Quadri lost to the tournament’s number one seed Marylove Edwards in the women’s singles event semi-finals at the 2022 CBN Senior Tennis Open Championships on Saturday in Abuja.

This was after she had taken an early lead and thoroughly dominated the first set which she won 6-1.

Edwards however bounced back from a set down to take the last two sets and knock out Quadri who was the tournament’s number three seed 1-6 6-2 6-4.

Edwards eventually defeated number three seed Aanu Aiyegbusi 6-3 6-4 to win the tournament.

Quadri told NAN however that the game had made her to take some time out to reflect and think about her mental state.

She said she has lost interest and did not have any plans to play in the country anytime soon.

“I don’t have any plans to play in Nigeria again. I mean, I used to want to play here, especially after the first time I played here.

“It was my goal to win a lot of tournaments in the country.

“But I don’t have those goals anymore. I think I have lost reasons to continue to play in this tournament for example.

“For instance, you will find that other players here are way more motivated than I am in this tournament.

“I think that’s a mental issue I need to personally work on and hopefully next time when I do come to play in this tournament it would be because I want to and I am motivated to do so,” Quadri said.

She revealed that a lot of things affected her performance in the CBN tournament, emphasising however that she didn’t want to go into specific details.

Quadri nonetheless expressed her gratitude to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the tournament’s sponsors, for their continuous and unflinching commitment in supporting the tennis game in Nigeria for such a long time.

“Although we had some issues bothering on players’ welfare, which was one of the reasons a lot of things didn’t go as planned, I will still like to thank the sponsors for putting this tournament together for the 44th time.

“I could see what it meant to the players and I think I need to take a break and just try to find that reason to play here again,” she said.

In terms of her national rankings, Quadri noted that it was difficult for her to actually prioritise that, noting that she was usually not in the country for most part of the year.

“I am usually not available to play these tournaments in the country 80 percent of the time.

“So, it’s not magic. I cannot maintain my number one position in the country any longer. But technically if you are looking at the rankings, I remain number one.

NAN also reports that the 19-year-old is currently the highest-ranked Nigerian in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) women’s singles category.

In the November 2019 WTA rankings, she was ranked number one in Nigeria, nine in Africa and 940 in the world in the women’s singles category.

“I am playing pro tennis now and presently ranked 1,000th in the WTA rankings.

“So, I am hoping to play so many international tournaments this year so as to continue to improve my rankings at the world stage,” Quadri said. (NAN)

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