Two years ago, 16-year-old Noma Noha Akugue touched down in the Netherlands for her first professional tournament outside of her native Germany.

A decent, if not prolific, junior, she had won a couple of ITF under 18 tournaments and felt it was time to try her luck on the professional scene. How right she was.

Seven match-wins later, Noha Akugue found herself in the title match at W15 Alkmaar – a run that proved beyond any doubt that pursing a professional tennis career was well within her grasp.

Fast-forward 24 months and Noha Akugue is one of the brightest young prospects on the ITF World Tennis Tour – possessing a firecracker forehand and a seemingly nerveless on court demeanour.

Over the past eight weeks she has reached three finals, including her first two at W60 level in Hechingen and Prague. In May, she won her maiden ITF singles title at W15 Cairo, and went on to finish runner-up at the same venue a week later.

“I didn’t really realise at the time, but after that trip I realised that I can do it,” she said. “I have to work more, I have to be stable [on court]. With that confidence I can play and win matches. It was a turning point.”

"I’m really proud to make those finals after I was injured for nine months... I couldn’t serve"

Victory in Cairo and the progress she has made in the months since are a welcome reward for the 18-year-old lefthander after a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a shoulder injury.

“I’m really proud to make those finals after I was injured for nine months,” she reflected. “I couldn’t serve, and it was really tough for me to come back. The beginning of the year was also really tough for me because I didn’t have the match practice. Everything was gone.”

When fully fit, Noha Akugue is a force to be reckoned with. She already has a Top 100 win to her name, having despatched then-world No. 89 Margarita Gasparyan in straight sets in the qualifying draw at the WTA Stuttgart tournament last year, and has held her own against other higher-ranked players like Liudmila Samsonova and Daria Saville.

Her best shot (“my forehand, for sure”) packs a punch that perhaps derives from her father’s interest in boxing, but the teenager, whose parents emigrated from Nigeria to a town near Hamburg before she and her two younger brothers were born, was hardly pushed in to the sport.

“My father was into boxing. He wasn’t interested in tennis that much,” she admitted. “The reason I played tennis at this young age was because my father wanted me to do something – like, any sport. I started with swimming and then I went to tennis.”

Noha Akugue is a member of the DTB’s Porsche Talent Team, which seeks to promote and support Germany's best young tennis talent. Fellow rising stars like Nastasja Schunk, a runner-up at junior Wimbledon in 2021, and Jule Niemeier, who reached the last eight at the All England Club this year, are part of a hugely promising 2022 crop.

That support has helped fast-track her progress, as did the decision to end her junior career early after she suffered back-to-back first round losses in the opening round of the girls’ singles at Wimbledon and JA Milan in 2021.

“I think it was a good decision to end with the juniors,” she reflected. “My position was Top 100, but not that good. It was a good decision to turn pro as I got some help from Barbara Rittner with wild cards into W25s and so on in Germany.

"At the beginning of the year I didn’t think I could do 200-300, I didn’t have those expectations"

“Now I’m 305 in the WTA rankings. That means so much for me,” she said. “At the beginning of the year I didn’t think I could do 200-300, I didn’t have those expectations.

“I’m really, really proud and also a bit shocked that I’m now [near the top] 300 and playing so good this summer. It showed me that I can play with the Top 100 or Top 200 players with my level, and also play against Top 200 players and win.”

Time to reassess the goals, then?

“For sure,” she said. “The goal for myself is that I want to play the Australian Open next year – try and play qualies to get in. I need some points. Now it’s the end of the summer, I hope that I can achieve a ranking of 250 maybe.”

Whether she hits that goal sooner or later remains to be seen, but one thing for sure: Noma’s going places.