Newly crowned Wimbledon Girls Doubles champion, Angela Okutoyi, revealed on Tuesday, July 7, that she met her partner, Rose Nijkamp, on a social media platform, a few days before the start of the grand slam tennis tournament.
Okutoyi stated that she was almost giving up before the Dutch international reached out to her via Instagram.
In an exclusive interview with Citizen TV's Waihiga Mwaura, Okutoyi said that she requested a lot of players to team up with her but most of them said that they already had partners.
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“I met Rose Marie on Instagram. First of all, I didn't have a partner and I contacted a lot of guys and they all said they had partners, so I didn't have one until Rose contacted me asking if I would want to play doubles with her," she told Mwaura.
Okutoyi - who did exemplarily well at the 2022 Australian and French Open tennis tournaments - added that she had to wait for Nijkamp to qualify for the main draw.
“Nijkamp was still in the qualifying draws but I said why not? If you are in qualifiers, it is very hard to get into main draws in the double’s competition.
"She would later text me to tell me that she managed to get into the main draw of the singles which gave her a chance to get into the main draw doubles so we were both really happy and I got to partner with her,” Okutoyi stated.
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The 2021 African Junior Champion further divulged that winning the Wimbledon title meant a lot for both of them.
“It meant a lot to us because we didn’t know each other but we came out with a title. We both cried when we won. It was a good moment for both of us,” said Okutoyi.
Okutoyi, who was introduced to tennis at the tender age of 4, hopes her historic win will inspire millions of Kenyan children.
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