Second round action at the Tombim Abuja Open gets underway on Thursday at the National Tennis Centre, with Nigeria’s No. 1, Sylvester Emmanuel among the players seeking quarter-final spots

Here are three matches to look forward to today:

Sylvester Emmanuel vs Benjamin Lock [6]

Following his impressive straight-sets victory over Oleg Khotkov in the first round, Nigeria’s No. 1, Sylvester Emmanuel will attempt to get into the Tombim Open quarter finals when he takes on Zmibabwean sixth seed, Benjamin Lock on Thursday.

The 548th-ranked Zimbabwean was similarly impressive in his first round match against 14-year-old Mukhtar Andu, where he dropped only two games, but Emmanuel will produce a sterner test in Thursday’s second round meeting.

Lock made back-to-back quarterfinal appearances at the Lagos Open in October last year, but since the start of the 2019 season, his form has been shaky. He has only managed four wins on the ITF World Tour this season, and hasn’t gone past the second round of all events he’s has played in.

Can Emmanuel condemn the Zimbabwean to another second round defeat, or will the 6th seed break the duck here and make his first ITF quarter final of the season?

Maxime Mora vs Sadio Doumbia [2]

Maxime Mora and second seed, Sadio Doumbia will lock horns in this all-French second round affair.

Doumbia eased to a very comfortable win in the first round, where he dropped just a game against Abdoulaziz Bationo on Tuesday. Mora, on the other hand, survived a nearly 3-hour three-set battle against Nigeria’s Musa Mohammed on Wednesday to reach this stage.

This year, Mora has only managed one decent run- a quarterfinal showing at an M15 event in Palmanova, Spain. Aside that, he had not made it past the first round in the six other tournaments he’s played leading up to the Tombim Open.

Doumbia, meanwhile, made a run to the quarterfinals of a Challenger tournament in Canberra, Australia, in January, and before coming into Abuja, made back-to-back quarterfinal appearances on the ITF World Tour in Russia and Portugal.

Doumbia heads into Thursdays’s match as the clear favourite- will he justify that tag?

Danylo Kalenichenko vs Jaimee Floyd Angele

Ukraine’s Danylo Kalenichenko will go head-to-head with French teenager, Jaimee Angele of France, the tallest man in the Tombim draw at 6ft 9in, in the second round on Thursday.

Both men finished as semifinalists in last year’s event and are surely habouring hopes of going further this season, but one of them will have to give way later today.

Kalenichenko is on the back of a straight-sets win over Joseph Imeh in the first round, but the Ukrainian could face a lot of trouble from Angele’s big-serving. The Frenchman fired 14 aces in his 6-4, 6-3 victory over Brazil’s Pedro Sorgi in the opening round on Tuesday.

Will Kalenichenko fend off those heavy serves, or will the towering Frenchman fire his way into the quarterfinals?

Thursday’s Full Order of Play

Centre Court

Starting at 10:00
Maxime Mora (FRA) vs. Sadio Doumbia (FRA) [2]

Followed By
Guy Orly Iradukunda (BDI) vs. Arjun Kadhe (IND) [3]

Not Before 13:00
Sadio Doumbia (FRA) / Fabien Reboul (FRA) [3] vs. Hugo Largo (ESP) / Li-Wei Tan (TPE)

After Rest, Not Before 15:00
Arjun Kadhe (IND) / Maximilian Neuchrist (AUT) [1]
vs. Danylo Kalenichenko (UKR) / Niels Lootsma (NED)

Court 1

Starting at 10:00
William Bushamuka (USA) vs. Li-Wei Tan (TPE)

Followed By
Benjamin Lock (ZIM) [6] vs. Sylvester Emmanuel (NGR)

After Rest, Not Before 15:00
William Bushamuka (USA) / Simon Yitbarek (SWE)
vs. Dan Added (FRA) / Michail Pervolarakis (GRE) [4]

Court 5