Week 41 - Nigeria F4 - Lagos ($25,000+H) (hard)

KK · Club Coach

RE: Week 41 - Nigeria F4 - Lagos ($25,000+H) (hard)

Nix · Futures qualifying

I think it was me KK and probably because I have a 17 year old and a 14 year old and teenage years are very familiar territory, lol! So glad youve been able to enjoy Jacks progress and been so gracious about it.

Priesty · Challenger level

Oakland2002 wrote:
He was very polite to John McEnroe when he was 14, showed absolute focus (even at 14) a self confidence consistent with his aspiration, McEnroes comment was we need more like Jack. I just wish him well.
Priesty wrote:
Julia Carrot wrote:
KK wrote:
I took against Jack at Wimbledon as I thought he was arrogant. I disliked the way he encouraged the crowd to clap harder at the end of the match when he won. However, I took on board someone's comments on this forum at the time that I should give a teenager some slack. In the longer run this has made me happier in that I have been able to enjoy rather than be irritated by his triumphs of the last few weeks. I suppose this is a milder example of the premise that it is the hater rather than the hated who suffers more from hatred.

This made me chuckle. Infused with a nice dose of humility perhaps. And although you perceived Jack as arrogant, at Wimbledon, I think his earlier interview in Lagos ( did you see iti?) showed him as being quite a grounded, and not at all arrogant, young man.
Agree with Julia, I've only seen 3 interviews with Jack but thought he came across in each of them as level-headed, mature and realistic with regards to his tennis and also polite and respectful towards the interviewer.

Where did you hear that, is there a link to it anywhere? Nice little story.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

BBC sport get inspired June 2016 its pretty easy to find

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
And the youngster does it !

L32: (WC) Mukhtar Andu (GBR) UNR (age 14) def. (Q) Paul Emmanuel (NGR) UNR 6-4 6-4

NB He's only just 14 too, born July 2004. Really thrilled for him and his mum/family/group of supporters. What a day

I was looking at the big British Tour event in Bolton and saw the name of the young Irish player with the African name who was also given wildcards to these events in Nigeria, and it made me think of young Mukhtar - anyone got any idea what he's been up to in the last 6 months?

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
And the youngster does it !

L32: (WC) Mukhtar Andu (GBR) UNR (age 14) def. (Q) Paul Emmanuel (NGR) UNR 6-4 6-4

NB He's only just 14 too, born July 2004. Really thrilled for him and his mum/family/group of supporters. What a day

I was looking at the big British Tour event in Bolton and saw the name of the young Irish player with the African name who was also given wildcards to these events in Nigeria, and it made me think of young Mukhtar - anyone got any idea what he's been up to in the last 6 months?

Can't help I'm afraid CD, but strangely enough, I was thinking about him just the other day.

Madadman · Top national player

Looks to have played a tournament at Sutton on the weekend. lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/matches.aspx

Still only 14. Not 15 till July. What age do the LTA normally start taking juniors around the junior itf circuit?

bartman2099 · Lower Club Player

I saw a bit of the match he lost at Sutton this weekend.
I only knew about him because of this forum and I was really curious to see what his game was like since he managed to get a ranking point at such a young age.
He looks like a normal 14 year old in terms of size, he definitely will work on developing more power but his shots are very sound.
Forehand is good although I think he could still work on it in a technical sense. His backhand on the other hand is so so good, pretty much unbreakable and the motion is so simple it's like playing against a wall on that side.
Serve is definitely still developing but I'm sure he will focus on that in the coming years as he grows as well. He is also lightning fast.
The match I was watching was best of 3 sets with a match-tiebreak instead of a third set and it took 3 hours! He was mostly defending but I don't know if that's his usual style or just how the game flowed against an attacking opponent. They were having regular 15+ shot rallies and he was a machine on that backhand just getting everything back. Unfortunately for him he lost 10-8 in the match tiebreak.
I'll be really interested in how he does in the future.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Really interesting, bartman. Many tx.

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Interesting post from Bartman.

CD's bump also reminded me of that 15 year old female player Sashi Kempster who was quite random on here at the time and managed to win either a 1R 15k match or a qualifier about a year ago, but has hardly been heard from since.

the addict · Tennis legend

Sashi did appear on a number of entry lists in the latter part of last year, but only managed to get into a few tournaments, losing in QR1. I haven't kept up my lists so much this year, but haven't noticed her name recently.

JonH · All-time great

the addict wrote:
Sashi did appear on a number of entry lists in the latter part of last year, but only managed to get into a few tournaments, losing in QR1. I haven't kept up my lists so much this year, but haven't noticed her name recently.

She seemed to play all her events in Portugal, perhaps she is training out there or living out there?

https://www.coretennis.net/tennis-player/sashi-kempster/98563/profile.html

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Yeah and in this thread from last May:
britishtennis.activeboard.com/t64647463/week-21-itf-15k-oeiras-portugal-clay/

Someone posted this link:
www.instagram.com/p/BhTzHIFHAFi/

But it looks like this coach has had nothing to do with her from around September which coincides with her not playing from around that time in Jon's link. I guess it's only 6 months ago, but not sure whether they're no longer connected or if she's just having a break from training / competing.

Madadman · Top national player

bartman2099 wrote:
I saw a bit of the match he lost at Sutton this weekend.
I only knew about him because of this forum and I was really curious to see what his game was like since he managed to get a ranking point at such a young age.
He looks like a normal 14 year old in terms of size, he definitely will work on developing more power but his shots are very sound.
Forehand is good although I think he could still work on it in a technical sense. His backhand on the other hand is so so good, pretty much unbreakable and the motion is so simple it's like playing against a wall on that side.
Serve is definitely still developing but I'm sure he will focus on that in the coming years as he grows as well. He is also lightning fast.
The match I was watching was best of 3 sets with a match-tiebreak instead of a third set and it took 3 hours! He was mostly defending but I don't know if that's his usual style or just how the game flowed against an attacking opponent. They were having regular 15+ shot rallies and he was a machine on that backhand just getting everything back. Unfortunately for him he lost 10-8 in the match tiebreak.
I'll be really interested in how he does in the future.

Thanks for the information. Sounds like he has a solid enough game for someone of his age to work on over the next few years. Will be interesting to see if he plays many tournaments this summer.