by As the African Games tennis tournament in Accra reached the semi-final stage last week, Kenya’s Angella Okutoyi found herself in unexpected territory. Across the network from the world No. 532 stood Mayar Sherif of Egypt, an elite player ranked No. More than four hours later, remarkably, Okutoyi, 20, emerged with a 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (5) victory before leaving Ghana with a gold medal.
In Okutoyi’s short career, he has regularly succeeded in making history. In 2022, she became the first Kenyan to win a match at a junior grand slam tournament, the Australian Open, and followed that up by winning the 2022 Wimbledon girls’ doubles title with Rose Marie Nijkamp of the Netherlands. Her hopes and dreams on the professional circuit reflect one of the most pressing questions in world-class tennis: can the sport provide a path for black African tennis players to reach the top?
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Despite tennis being such a global sport, Africa has long been a blind spot, both in terms of the presence of its nations on the tours and participation at the community level. Notable exceptions came from South Africa and also in the form of Ons Jabeur from Tunisia, one of the great players of her time, who has reached No. 2 in the rankings and three grand slam finals. Sherif followed in Jabeur’s footsteps, rising to a career high of No 31 last year.
In sub-Saharan Africa, historically, few players or events have reached the sporting elite. In the past year, however, some countries have made progress to help players make the step up. In Burundi last year, Bujumbura hosted a women’s professional event for the first time, with back-to-back ITF World Tennis Tour tournaments, with home favorite Sada Nahimana reaching the final as the top seed. The competition will return next month for a second edition.
In December, Nairobi successfully hosted two events, with Okutoyi winning her first ITF title in one. Just this month, meanwhile, Rwanda hosted two ATP Challenger events for the first time.
Théoneste Karenzi, president of the Rwanda Tennis Federation, says the goal is to bring professional tennis closer to aspiring players in the country and its neighbors. “We are also discussing this with other nations in East Africa so that when a player comes to Rwanda, you will be successful as a circuit within the region. It becomes easier and cheaper for players to come to the region. That’s our philosophy and that’s the way forward.”
Although a number of African players have reached the highest level of junior tennis in recent years, the transition to the professional circuit is more difficult with little competition on the continent. “The Juniors are fine, we can keep a lot because there is no prize money,” says Wanjiru Mbugua, the general secretary of Tennis Kenya and vice-president of the African Tennis Confederation. “But when it comes to professional events, more money is needed to run it so we have very little. So any player who gets their points has to travel out of the country.”
Although there are professional events in northern Africa, such as Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, Mbugua notes that even those events are difficult to reach. “Remember, for us boys on this side of Africa, you have to go to Europe before you come to Tunisia, or you have to go to Dubai or you have to go to Qatar to get back to Africa. Those are the [flight] ways you have. It’s basically like flying to Europe.”
Karenzi also highlights the perennial challenge of obtaining visas as yet another obstacle to the success of African players. “Tickets, visas in Europe are sometimes a big challenge in those countries. Some of these are young [players] have very little private sector sponsorship. They have no means, so it’s about the money to travel around the world, it’s about visas which are complicated in some countries in Europe and the United States.”
Although players often compete in front of some spectators on the ITF World Tennis Tour, each of these recent new tournaments has drawn good local crowds. As the Rwanda Challenger drew to a close, a visit from the tennis-playing president, Paul Kagame, gained more attention.
The tournament also invited former French Open champion Yannick Noah as an ambassador. In 1971, 11-year-old Arthur Ashe discovered Noah on a trip to Cameroon. Noah moved to France and remains the last Frenchman to win the singles at Roland Garros since victory in 1983. His presence was a reminder of another missing ingredient: inspiration and examples of those who have already succeeded.
“He had clinics with some of our players, young people, and he told his story,” says Karenzi. “A star like him who was a professional tennis player and a grand slam winner, talking to them and letting them know it’s possible, and meeting them one-on-one: it’s very important.”
In an interview with Regis Isheja in Rwanda, Noah compared success in tennis to long-distance running. “For an African tennis player, I like to say that his journey is comparable to a marathon,” he said. “For a European or American player, the marathon is 26 miles. For the African child, the marathon is 29 miles.”
For those with the talent and hope to rise to the top of the rankings, their marathon may seem longer. After finding success in the junior games, instead of jumping ahead to the professional tour like many of her peers, Okutoyi enrolled at Auburn University, where she competes in the NCAA on a full scholarship.
Some of the top African players were lucky to get help, with Nahimana, who rose to No. 12 in the junior rankings and broke the top 250 on the WTA tour last year, and Eliakim Coulibaly, an Ivorian who reached No. 16 as a junior and a career high of 378 on the ATP tour last year, both of whom were sent to train at the Mouratoglou Academy in France.
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In Okutoyi’s case, however, Tennis Kenya did not have the resources to fund her professional career immediately after juniors. The college system has provided her with a great base from a coaching point of view and we hope it’s a great base when she finishes university and becomes a professional.
“She was far beyond what we could provide,” says Mbugua. “We did the calculations for her to make an impact on a pro basis and we realized it was coming to about $200,000 a year. Even if we got that money, we still needed so many other things. That would help her with travel, accommodation, but we also had to get a coach, a sparring partner. She would need physio, the full fix.”
Her victory at the African Games, however, has changed everything. Her Olympic spot comes with a catch: Okutoyi must be ranked within the top 400 by the Olympics cut-off date, June 10, to take her place in the main draw. Between her college tournaments, work and all the financial challenges that come with competing regularly on the tour, she, her team and Tennis Kenya must now find a way to give her the best chance to reach Paris.
“I couldn’t sleep,” says Mbugua, laughing. “Because I was like: ‘Now we have won, now we have to do the impossible.’
