Emmanuel Kevin Vanderpuye capped off an impressive autumn on Saturday by defeating former black stars striker Baffour Gyan to win Army Officers Mess Tennis Club Blue Court Gentlemen Ranking title with 3-6,6-4, 10-3 win.
Baffour Gyan looked rattled by Kevin Vanderpuye's intensity and made a lot of unforced errors. In the opening set set the tone for the long and gruelling arm wrestle to come. Baffour broke at 4-1 and drew first blood to win the opening set 6-3.
In the second set, Baffour double-faulted to allow Kevin Vanderpuye to level the match to 3 games all. Steely-eyed Kevin Vanderpuye, shrugged off the setback and broke Baffour in the seventh game of the second set.
Speaking to ghanatennis.org, Kevin Vanderpuye said, 'First and foremost, I would say that it was God who did it all. I knew it would be difficult to beat Baffour because he has a faithful crowd that supports him and can frustrate any player against him with noise. So I decided to play the balls back to him and keep a cool head by trying to wear him down and make him tired. So though he won the first set and took me 3:0 in the beginning of the second set, I kept my composure and beat him 6:4 in the second set which took us to a super tie-break from first to 10. By then he looked tired, and I won by 10 points to 3.
He thanked the organizers AMTEC executives for such tournaments,
'I would like to acknowledge the Executives of AMTEC for organizing this tournament and giving us the opportunity to display our skills against each other. It has been a tough week and a week of learning and networking. I thank them for the opportunity given to me and I say, I am truly grateful. Great job. I will always support such initiatives as it builds up the morale of the players and their confidence levels.
AMTEC Tennis Club comprises two courts the Blue court and the Green court. The Blue Court Gentleman Tennis Ranking tournament is for beginners and the Green court is for social players who are excellent and participate in the club's tournaments.
The winner of the Blue court tournament graduates to the Green court.
