Quartey, Ghana’s number three seed, recently lost the 2017 Accra Open Tennis and the National Ranking Tour Two titles to Wisdom Na-Adjrago and Benjamin Fumi respectively.

Last year, the former student of the Teshie Technical Training Institute lost the Accra Open Tennis title to Jeff Bagerbaseh and was beaten by Bernard Ashitey Armaah in the Seniors final.

This time, however, Quartey is determined to step up the plate at the Sports Festival. He told the Daily Graphic after training at the Accra Sports Stadium last Thursday, that he was looking forward to winning the ultimate in Kumasi.

“I have been training seriously for the past two weeks towards the Kumasi games because I need to turn the situation around. Last year, I finished second in all the tournaments and this year, too, the same thing has happened.

“Honestly, I feel very bad that after struggling to make it to the final, I end up losing the ultimate to my opponents. I need to fix it before the year ends and the only way to do that is by going the extra mile,” he said

Quartey will face strong opposition from Emmanuel Plange, Isaac Titriku and Fred Egyir, among others, in his quest for honours at the August 31-September 7 competition involving about 2,500 athletes over 12 disciplines.