The youngest Kenya Open winner in history, Angela Okutoyi will play three high profile International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior tournaments in South Africa next month. Okutoyi, who is currently on holiday, will intensify her preparations next week as she seeks to move up the rankings and has a chance of playing in junior grand slam tournament next year. Okutoyi played in ITF Junior tourney in Egypt earlier this month, winning the doubles category alongside Egyptian Jermaine Sheriff and making it the semis and quarters in the singles tournaments.
She said she is relishing the challenge of playing down South. "Egypt was a good eye opener. I had not played for three months so struggled and adjusting to the heat in Egypt took its toll on me," said Okutoyi. "The tournaments in South Africa will be good competition because I will be up against the top ranked players on the continent. So if I can make it to the final, it will be good preparation for the bigger tournaments in North America."
Okutoyi earned a scholarship to the ITF high-performance tennis center in Casablanca, Morocco in November last year as part of ITF’s project to grow African junior tennis players and have them play at the highest junior level as well as transition to professional tennis and maintain their high performance.
The 17-year old earned the award after winning two back-to-back ITF Junior J4 singles events in Nairobi in January. She won 6-3 6-2 against Celine Simunyu of Ireland and beat Hungary’s Luca Udvardy 6-1, 6-4 to move to a career-high ranking of 127 globally. She also won one doubles title and took second place in another partnering with Iran’s Meshkatolzahra Safi. In 2018, she became the youngest player to win the Kenya Open then aged 14 after upsetting experienced three-time former champion Shufaa Changawa 6-1, 7-6 at Nairobi Club. In the same year, she won the Africa Junior Championship on Clay Court (AJCCC) Under 14 singles in Algeria before following it up with singles and doubles triumph at the ITF East African Under 18 Junior Circuit, ITF Nairobi Junior Open and Eastern Africa Zonal Championships Under-16 in 2019.