Winning as many Grand Slams as possible, being the first Kenyan to do that and being the world’s best tennis player are some of the goals newly-crowned Kenyan Wimbledon champion Angella Okutoyi says she had growing up.
Okutoyi, born in January 2004, did not know then that she would win at the Africa Junior Championship in 2021.
Additionally, she was unaware that in the girls singles main draw of the Australian Open Junior championships, she would triumph 2-1 over Federica Urgesi of Italy.
All of that would happen much later, along with the 14-year-old player becoming the youngest to win the Kenya Open.
However, the 18-year-old, who on Saturday became the first Kenyan woman to win a Wimbledon title, says she would like to compete against American star Serena Williams, who has the second-most Grand Slam singles titles of all time with 23 victories.
“Ever since I was young, my dream was to see myself playing for the big stages, at the big grand slams with the senior players, win as many as possible and be the first Kenyan to do that and the world’s number 1,” Okutoyi told Citizen TV’s Waihiga Mwaura in a Tuesday interview.
Asked if she would want to play against Serena Williams sometime, the rising star told Mwaura “For sure! And I want to beat her!”
Okutoyi has caught the world’s attention in recent months, but especially since Saturday’s win. The Africa Junior champion and her Dutch partner, Rose Marie Nijkamp, won the girls’ doubles crown at the Junior Championship in London.
The pair beat Canadians Kayla Cross and Victoria Mboko 3-6, 6-4, and 11-9 in the Grand Slam finals held at the ALL England Lawn Tennis Club.
Not only was her win monumental, but her participation in the match was historic in itself; she was the first-ever Kenyan to play in a Grand Slam final.
During the interview, Okutoyi also revealed that she initially connected with Nijkamp on Instagram just days before the tournament.
She said she was looking for a partner to play with in the tournament at the time, but her efforts to find one were proving difficult until Nijkamp reached out to her.
“I met Rose Marie on Instagram. First of all I didn’t have a partner and I contacted a lot of guys and they all said they had partners, so I didn’t have one until Rose contacted me asking if I would want to play doubles with her,” she told show host Waihiga Mwaura.
Despite jumping at the opportunity to play with Nijkamp, Okutoyi noted that the Dutch player had to clear one final hurdle to ensure that they could partner together at the Wimbledon Opens.
“Nijkamp was still in the qualifying draws, but I said why not. If you are in qualies, it is very hard to get into the main rows in the doubles competition,” she said.
As luck would have it, Nijikamp did well in the qualifiers, which made her eligible to contest the doubles event alongside Okutoyi.
“She would later text me to tell me that she managed to get into the main draw of the singles which gave her a chance to get into the main draw doubles so we were both really happy and I got to partner with her,” she said.
Okutoyi was looking to make an impression after falling short in the singles tournament, and she managed to do just that alongside her partner.
“It was a good moment for both of us not knowing each other and coming out with a title, it meant a lot to us,” she said.
Her schedule is as tight as they get: “I train from 7 to 10 and then have school from 10:30 to 12:30, then a break, and then start my afternoon training from 1:30 to 3:30 and I have school from 5-7.”
She rests on Saturday and Sunday.
“There’s stress everywhere, even when I am playing… but for me, I don’t even know how I manage it. I don’t tend to think much about it, I just keep cool, and then listen to music sometimes.
“I do things that make me happy to keep the pressure low.”
