Rwanda’s Etienne Niyigena became the first player to be eliminated from Rwanda Open M25 tournament following Tuesday’s 0-6, 2-6 defeat to France’s Corentin Denolly in the first round at Kigali Ecology Tennis Club.

It took the French just 50 minutes to get the business finished, giving Niyigena no room to win a single game in the opening set which he eventually won 6-0 before taking the second 6-2 to advance to the second round of the tournament.

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Niyigena was among three Rwandans who were granted wild cards to take part in Rwanda Open M25 but he was not able to get past the first round. He admits he found himself in an unbalanced game during which his opponent’s level was quite superior.

"The tournament is very difficult to us, it is at a very high level,” Niyigena told Times Sport after shock elimination from the first round on Tuesday.

"We have to do many things to be on the same level as these guys,” he added.

He returns to action in the doubles on Tuesday afternoon where he will team up with Kenyan Kevin Cheruiyot for a round of 16 men’s doubles match against Italian Guelfo Baldovinetti and Indian Raghav Jaisinghani.

Hyperlink: https://twitter.com/TimesSportRW/status/1698982413613838509?s=20

Rwanda Open M25 will run for two weeks with the first week running from September 4-10, while the second week will take place from September 11-17. All games will take place at Kigali Ecology Tennis Club.

Each week will involve 32 players including 20 top ranked players are exempted from preliminary stages due to the fact that they are ranked below 1000 on ITF/ATP ranking while eight others are made to play the preliminary games for them to progress to the first round. Four remaining players are granted wild cards to be included in the competition