For her tender age of 11, MaryLove Edwards is smart and intelligent. Taiwo Alimi sat down with the tennis kid-star as well as her trainer, Kayode JayJay Savage, to trash-talk about her family, exploit, and future. It is interesting as well as revealing, enjoy….
Although, 11-year-old tennis sensation would not be lured into comparing herself with Grand Slam winner and tennis great, Serena Williams, her story and charisma are near similar to that of the American superstar. Their skills were both discovered and nurtured by their father.
MaryLove’s enthusiasm is infectious and reminds one of the I-can-do-it spirit of Serena on and off tennis court.
“I love Serena Williams and love to watch her tapes. In-fact, she is my idol, but I don’t want to be called Serena. I am MaryLove Edwards and don’t want to be any other person but MaryLove,” she said with the confidence of a seasoned player and winner, yet she is just 11 and in Junior Secondary School.
Coach Kayode Savage, aka JayJay, her trainer, and the man who has been training her after her athletic father, Eddy Love, discovered her huge potential at age 4, says his girl has surprised all pleasantly, given her achievement at such tender age.
Said he: “The confidence radiated by MaryLove is not unexpected. If you have as many trophies as she has in her cabinet at that age, then you would be confident to a point of conquering the world. She has won more than a score tournaments and about two dozen trophies and laurels and now number 4 in Africa playing alongside 13 and 14 year olds.” Coach and player undeniably share great chemistry after eight years together.
JayJay said of her beginning: “I have been training MaryLove Edwards for the past eight years and that is when she was just four. She was very small at that point, such that she could not hold the racket with one hand, so she has to hold the racket with both hands. She is quite very small. When we started the training, I had made up my mind that she is going to be a project. She won her first tournament, the CBN Junior Tennis Championship, at eight years old. Moreover, that was her first tournament after we have trained her for many years. She won it back to back and went on to win other tournaments in the country. The whole idea was that she would train and go for tournament. When the MaryLove project started, I told her dad, even if it means going to a bank to get a loan, he had to because this was a project and for us to be able to make a mark, no expense should be spared. The idea is that if you must be a champion, you must play among the champions. That is the way it is abroad. The likes of (Roger) Federer, (Novaks) Djokovic, and (Raphael) Nadal knew themselves from the junior category. They have been playing together since age 12, they knew themselves.”
But MaryLove has surpassed the expectation of his coach, who is also an assistant coach in the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF).
She took all the trophies in the land beginning with the U-14 CBN Junior Tennis Championship, the NNPC Junior Tennis Masters, and the 2016 ITF/CAT West and Central Africa Junior Championships holding in Abuja U-14 girls’ category. She has also beaten the best players in the country, who are actually older than she is. One of them is Nigeria’s number one seed, Sarah Adegoke, and Angel McLeod, her trainer-partner and friend.
JayJay added: “It is like she has fast tracked the project because she won her first tournament at eight years, the Junior Central Bank Tennis Championship (CBN). In her gallery now, she has up to 21 laurels, within and outside the country. The whole idea was that she would train and go to competition. However, over time, there is no competition in this country and you find the players training and training forever. Right now, she is number four in Africa for age 14 category and her real age category is 12. For her real age category, she is number three in Africa. She has actually outgrown her real age category, and so we have no choice than to move her one step ahead to 18 and under. From next year, we are doing this because her level of playing has outgrown her age. We want to push her early enough into the WTA tour. It does not matter if she is winning or not. That is the plan we have for MaryLove.
Therefore, we got a marketing outfit, Temple Management Company (TMC) that has helped us secure sponsorship for her so she can train and play competitions at home and abroad. This has paid off handsomely and coming up as runners-up in the final of the CBN Championship two weeks ago, did not come as any surprise to some of us who are conversant with her progress over the years.”
MaryLove’s strength, according to her coach, is her intelligence and strong character. “She is a Junior Secondary School (JSS 2) at Bayonle International School and even at school, she is among the best in her class. Her grades are awesome; even when she has to do the exams alone, which is almost often. She travels most of the time to play competitions and so had to sit for her exams alone. Even at that, she comes out with good grades. When I started training her, I quickly found that she is smart and intelligent. Tennis is such a game that you have to be intelligent to do well. You must take quick decisions and place your racquet, all within a split second and MaryLove was quite good at it. Then she has a strong character, and that is the edge she has over other players.”
MaryLove did not even try to shy away from her coach’s judgement of her. “I love to win all my matches. It doesn’t matter how big my opponent is, I’ve been taught to use my head well and I am using it. However, when I lose a game I don’t brood over it. I would just go back and watch videos of games, which my father gets for me. Train harder and come back to beat that player. ”
At her age, she is attracting a flock of fans, which come to the court to watch and support her. You know them by the way they chant of ‘I love you’ whenever their girl picks a point and making a love shape with their fingers in support of MaryLove at courtside.
“I love the fact that people now come to the court to see me and that is part of what is driving me to get better. In as much as I don’t want to let them down, I also don’t want to let myself down,” she added.
JayJay expects MaryLove to go far in tennis, but even her training thus far has not come easy. “As I said, MaryLove’s case was treated as a project, meaning she has to follow a planned programme in total. Her parents have sacrificed a lot to get her into tournaments and come for trainings at least three times in a week as well as travel for tournaments. She has to be on special diets and vitamins to gain strength, and this is a family that is not in any way rich. Her father has been wonderful and supportive and has to forego some things to ensure she achieves her dream.
“Millions of naira have been spent on MaryLove and kudos must go to TMC for getting notable companies to invest in her. The NTF is trying, but not enough, and for her to get to the peak of her game, the country must pay more attention to her. All hands must be on deck to help her, so she can make this country proud.”
For MaryLove, the sky is not her limit. She said exploit in Morocco, during the 2016 ITF/CAT 12 & under Talent Identification Programme, has opened her eyes to world she can conquer.
“I was beaten in the semi final by a Moroccan, but after the game I got the attention of many officials, who said I played intelligently, more like an older player. It was a tough match and I stayed on my toes for more than three hours. I really wanted to win the game but the girl was good too.”
Before her trip to Morocco, the Ishan, Edo State-born champion had won the 2016 U-14 CBN Junior Tennis Championship and the NNPC Junior Tennis Masters.
Alongside Barakat Quadri, Edwards saw off Anna Lumengo and Manuella Eloundou of Cameroun 6-3, 6-4 to win the 2016 ITF/CAT West and Central Africa Junior Championships holding in Abuja U-14 girls’ category.
Earlier last year at the ITF/CAT African Junior Championship in Pretoria, she added that she wanted to play in the Under 14 category. “They wouldn’t allow me, and so I played in the U-12, which I won easily.”
For all she has achieved for far, JayJay believes she has not even scratched it on the surface. “MaryLove is a work in progress. Becoming Serena Williams is still a serious work on her part and ours too. TMC arranged for her to travel to Florida, U.S about a month ago and she came back with a good experience that will help her. The first time TMC approached IMG (leading international sport management outfit) for a programme for MaryLove that would last five years and prepare her for big tennis, the bill they came back with was about N40million. That is a lot of money, so this project is highly capital-intensive and she needs all the support she can get to get to the stage. The good news is that she is a gifted kid and can go the whole way with good support,” added coach JayJay.
