By Rita Naa Ayeley Armah
The name Emmanuel Akwanor Wettey, might not sound familiar today, but it is one that anyone reading this article might have to look out for.
He was born in Osu, a suburb in Accra, Ghana. And didn’t grow up with a racket in his hand, rather, he started as a ball boy, watching matches from the sidelines and learning the game up close. He picked up tennis at seven, but it took years before he could call himself a player.
Like many young athletes in Ghana, he had to make sacrifices. He stepped away from junior high school for three years to train full-time at a local academy. It wasn’t an easy decision, just a practical one. Because he needed the reps, the coaching and the time to catch up to players who’d started earlier and had better resources.
By 2019, things started looking better. That year, he and Richmond Armaah won Ghana’s first ever ITF doubles gold at the Accra ITF tournament, beating a pair from Benin and Cameroon in a tight three-setter (2–6, 7–5, 10–3).
That wasn’t luck, on the junior doubles circuit that year, he recorded a 5–2 win-loss record, a 71% win rate and a career high ITF junior ranking of 1851 as of September 2019. He played three tournaments total that year, logging 24 matches and picking up 10 wins.
Fast forward to 2022, Emmanuel had moved on to represent the University of Ghana at the FASU Africa University Sports Games in Nairobi. He came away with two medals: bronze in men’s singles and silver in mixed doubles alongside Vanessa Akuaku Kabukie.
His performance opened up a new chapter where he landed an academic scholarship to Lewis and Clark Community College in the US, though the pandemic delayed his arrival until around 2023.
From there, Emmanuel moved on to Tuskegee University, where he continues to play collegiate tennis. His Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) peaked around 10, which put him in solid company at the college level.
At Lewis and Clark Community College, he helped them win a regional conference tournament. And played as the number 2 singles and the number 1 doubles.
He later transferred to SWIC where he played #1 singles and #1 doubles then won the best doubles team in the conference and later transferred to Tuskegee. At Tuskegee University, he played at #6 singles and #2 doubles.
He also helped them win the conference tournament after 20 years.
Which moved them to the ITA regionals where they lost to the number one ranked school in the nation, Division II. Emmanuel was the only one to win a set and lead in the second set until the opposition clinched.
During the season, he earned NCAA ALL CONFERENCE Doubles with his partner Shane Tapera and made it to the 2026 DII men’s scholar athletes honor with a 3.85 gpa.
Today, Emmanuel is still competing, still improving and still representing Ghana whenever he steps on court. He’s not a household name yet, but that’s not the point. He went from picking up balls for other players to holding his own on international courts, and he did it through years of hard work, not shortcuts.
And if there’s anything he promises now, it’s the fact that he is about to be a force to reckon with in the tennis world.
