Sensational Junior Tennis player, Damilola Agunbiade, representing Cross River State, has qualified for the semi-finals of the Boys 16s categories of the on-going 2026 edition of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Junior Tennis Championship holding at the Tennis court of the National Stadium, Surulere Lagos.
Though Dammy’ as he is fondly called, completed his preliminary games with a hundred per cent record, recording no defeat with his last win being against top seed, Isa Yahaya.
Damilola who won against the likes of John Israel 9-2, Joseph Austin 9-4, Peter Festus 9-1 and his last victim, Isa Yahaya whom he stopped 9-7 in his toughest game of the competition so far.
Beaming with smiles while speaking in his post match interview, confident looking Agunbiade said he wasn’t under any pressure to win his last match in this round robin competition, having booked his ticket to the semi-finals already.
“All I’m concerned with right now is the final on Saturday because, I have a mission to accomplish”
But reading Agunbiade’s mind psychologically, one was tempted to ask if the unaccomplished mission was a revenge, Agunbiade was quick to affirm that in the presence of his accompanying father, Tunde Agunbiade, not comfortable with his affirmation, his father, quickly cautioned him against jumping the gun by reminding him that it wasn’t right for him talking about final without first scaling the semi-final hurdles.
He asked him to focus on the game at hand which is the semi-finals before dabbling into the final. “Dammy, it is. important for you to always take one step at a time instead of jamming multiple steps together at the same time important,” he added.
The sami-final match is already released for the four categories of championship, starting with the Girls 12s, Boys 12s, Girls 14s, Boys 14s, Girls 16s and Boys 16s
Is Some of the fixtures, Pinky Onyemenam will take on Chemdiutor Obiora in the first Girls 12s semi-finals while Amira Oham ed engages Ve us Bababola in the Girls 12s second semi-finals.
Moroti Sowemimo will be sluging it our with Kingronnie in the first Boys 12s semi-finals while the Boys 12s second semi-finals is between Gideon Peter and Best Babalola.
Thereafter, attention will be shifted to the Girls 14s semi-finals where Barakat Ganiyu and Sinmi Olaniyan are standing waiting for their would be opponent to emerge.
The same story could also be said for the Boys 16s semi- finals where Heman Afaramai is eagerly waiting for his opponent to qualify while Damilola Agunbiade who has recorded four wins in the course of the tournament, will face Wisdom Effiong in the 2nd semi-finals.
However, the coast is clear in both the Girls 14s and Boys 14s categories where Gloria Samuel and Barakat Ganiyu will be settling their scores in the Girls 14s class ahead of the second semi-final match involving Favour James and Omoyinka Ayinla.
