Tennis: African Junior Championship |16 January 2018
Damien Laporte entered at ITF’s request
Damien Laporte will compete in theAfrican Junior Championship scheduled for March in Tunisia from April 9-14.
Thierry Ntwali Gafiligi, International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) East Africa Training Centre director, informed the Seychelles Tennis Association (STA) of the good news in an email dated Friday January 12, 2018.
He has urged the STA to enter Laporte for the African Junior Championship (AJC) 16 and under and that he will be accepted to play.
As it was decided at the start of the competition that only the category winners will automatically qualify for the African Junior Championship, Laporte had failed in his quest to play at the African showpiece after losing the East African Junior Championship’s under-16 boys’ singles final played on court number 8 at the Nairobi Club in Kenya, on a 0-2 (4-6, 2-6) score against Kenyan Ryan Randiek who has earned the right to play in the African showpiece later this year.
The tournament took place last week.
Laporte had to accept second place and the silver medal out of 19 players before partnering with Cerefe Kagoma of Burundi to play the under-16 boys’ doubles which they lost to the Kenyan duo of Derrick Ominde and Ryan Randiek on a 1-2 (4-6, 7-5, 10-5) score.
In his email addressed to STA chairperson Sarah Rene, Mr Gafiligi wrote that the STA should not be worried about Laporte as he will play the 2018 African Junior Championship Under-16.
“He is eligible on two of the criteria despite this year’s result.
“These are the criteria for this year’s African Junior Championship:
1. Choose the best six ITF rank players.
2. Choose the best player in the top 8 nation based on the 2017 U16 AJC results (Seychelles finished 8)
3. Choose a player from top 4 final Nation in U14 AJC in 2017.
4. Choose three players who qualify from the individual zone championship 2018
5. Then two wild cards for the host nation.
Since Laporte meets the first two criteria, according to Mr Gafiligi he will be eligible to play
Speaking to Sports NATION, Laporte said: “I feel very good about qualifying for this year’s championship because I have been qualifying for the event for the past four years.”
Laporte, who returned home on Saturday from Kenya where he lost in two finals, explained to Sports NATION that “Kenyan Ryan Randiek was simply better than me”.
“He deserved to win on the day as he was better than me. I just could not cope with how he was playing,” added Laporte, whose dream is to be a professional tennis player.
Making the most of some days off, the 15-year-old will soon be returning to Spain to resume training at the Academia Sánchez-Casal based in Barcelona. The academy is committed to high performance and its development area was created in 2007 in order to focus on players’ performance growth.
Outgoing Young Male Athlete of the Year Laporte, who stands a chance of retaining the title as he features among the five finalists, said he trains for four hours daily at the centre.
“I hope to play Ryan again in Tunisia and take my revenge against him this time. I also hope to win again like I did two years ago when I captured the under-14 boys’ singles title,” concluded local tennis star Laporte in a telephone interview with Sports NATION.
In his quest for the title and to become the African under-14 king in 2016, Laporte was up against Nigerian Michael Osewa in the boys’ singles final at the University of Pretoria High Performance Centre in Pretoria, South Africa and he won quite convincingly on a 2-0 (7-5, 6-4) score.
“I cannot describe the feeling,” said Laporte to Sports NATION upon his return in 2016. “It was my goal all along to win this competition and to achieve it is even better.”
With the win, Laporte, the first Seychellois to reach an African Junior Championships final, was ranked number one in Africa in the under-14 age category.
G. G.