User:Zeldadarko

Henry Adjei-Darko:

=Introduction= Born to Ghanaian parents Kwabena Adjei-Darko and Rose Appiah, Henry was born on the 28th of February 1983 in Accra, Ghana.

He started playing tennis at age 6 and started playing professional tennis on the 16th of October 2000 at the age of seventeen, with a win in a doubles event, partnering Clinton Jacobs of South Africa.

=Junior tennis= Adjei-Darko started playing tennis at the age of six. He began participating in group lessons at the age of 7 begun private coaching as well. He was very much into football until his dad persuaded him to focus solely on tennis.

He was the national champion in Ghana in all age groups he played in at 12, 14, 16 and 18 year groups and was chosen to train at the ITF (International Tennis Federation) center in South Africa in 1998.

Adjei-Darko made the quarter finals of the US Open juniors in 2001 and also the doubles semi-finals of the prestigious year-ending Orange Bowl and lost to Robert Soderling in the singles 3rd round in 2001.

As a junior, Henry was ranked as high as 27th in the world in singles and 13th in doubles.

=ITF and ATP Tour= Since then, Henry has not looked back climbing from the lowest ranking, which is one thousand four hundred and ninety one (1,491) to two hundred and seventy five (275) at the beginning of 2006.

Adjei-Darko played in his first grand slam event at Wimbledon in 2006 and lost in the first round of qualifying to American Robert Kendrick who would go on to take Rafael Nadal to a fifth set in the opening round.

Henry has had great success on the ITF tour winning a host of futures titles in Nigeria, Senegal, India and making the finals of events in the USA, and in Europe.

In 2006, Adjei-Darko made the quarter final of an ATP challenger in Dallas and won a doubles another challenger that same year in Joplin partnering Lesley Joseph and defeating the likes of Wayne Oudsema, Alex Kuznestsov, Benjamin Becker etc.

=Davis Cup= Henry Adjei-Darko has been Ghana's number one tennis player and leads the Davis cup team of his nation. In 2004 he, together with Gunther Darkey helped bring Ghana from the Euro-Africa group III to group II against nations like Turkey and Namibia.

He has a Davis cup record of 12-6 and has the best doubles team record of 6-4 on the Davis Cup team.

His last title was in March of 2007 at the Nigeria F2 futures tournament.

=Injury= He however suffered a setback after developing a cyst on his right playing wrist which has kept him out of competition since 2007.

=Recovery= Henry is currently undergoing rehabilitation and helping coach at the Windward Lake Club in Alpharetta, Georgia. He keeps in form by playing on local ALTA teams and recently led his AA3 team to city championship and a promotion to AA2.

=Family= Henry is married to Zelda, a sports journalist in Ghana. The two met during a Davis Cup tie in 2005. They have a daughter grayce Isabella born August 3, 2009.

Zeldadarko (talk) 20:32, 11 November 2008 (UTC)