NAIROBI, Kenya, June 12 – Kenya’s Stacey Yego believes their loss to Burundi in the doubles at the Billie Jean King Cup was a blessing in disguise for them.
Yego and Roselinda Asumwa lost 3-6 7-5 7-10 to Burundi’s Sada Nahimana and Hoziane Kitambala in a thrilling encounter on Wednesday afternoon at the Nairobi Club.
The youngster insists it was a priceless learning experience.
“We did our best in the match. It’s not a loss to us…we learnt a few things here and there and we just take everything positive from the match. We don’t look badly at it or be negative about it. We see it as an opportunity to improve on a few things. It’s not really about the loss but what you want to improve on,” Yego said.
Analysing the match, Yego conceded that they lost concentration as the game wore on but was nonetheless glad to have extended it to the tiebreaker.
“It was a good beginning to the match; we were up 3-1 then we kind of lost our rhythm and they took the set. In the second set, we tried to go for it and did our best and that’s how we took the set,” she said.
Yego added: “It is really nervous playing a tiebreak. We just did our best…the much that we could.”
Of course, the loss mattered little as Kenya ran out 2-1 overall winners, following Cynthia Cheruto and Angella Okutoyi’s wins over Kitambala and Nahimana in their singles match.
Kenya finished Group B with an unblemished record after triumphing over Mauritius and Tunisia on Monday and Tuesday.
A crunch fixture against fourth seed Nigeria awaits on Thursday with Kenya hoping to revenge their 2-1 loss to the West Africans in last year’s edition.
Asumwa believes they will not be caught napping this time round.
“We are ready…we believe in no weakness and we are ready to face whichever opponent. My team and I have been training and I believe we are equipped to defeat whatever opponent we face,” she said.
