The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has set a deadline for registration ahead of the first two Futures of the year taking place in 2018, Nigerian Tennis Live can authoritatively report.
Checks on the international tennis body’s website revealed clearly, that players who plan to participate in the Tombim Open will have to complete their registration on Thursday, 29 March while the deadline for withdrawal is Tuesday, 3 April.
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| Nigeria’s Sylvester Emmanuel is one of the players expected to participate in the ITF Futures. |
The ITF website also revealed that registration for participation in the DAYAK Open will end on Thursday, 5 April while withdrawal deadline is Tuesday, 10 April.
Further checks by Nigerian Tennis Live revealed that eventhough the date (30 April-6 May) for the third ITF Futures in the series has already been registered by the ITF, there were no details yet concerning the registration or withdrawal.
The Tombim, DAYAK and GSL Opens have helped Nigerian players get valuable ATP ranking points which have helped many of them participate in more Futures within and outside the continent.
The current president of the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF), Engr. Dayo Akindoju sponsors the DAYAK Open while soft-speaking Edmond Ajoge, is the sponsor of the TOMBIM Open; the longest of the three tournaments and Bayo Okusanya is the financier of the GSL Open.
Nigerians will hope that the sponsorship of these tournaments continue for a long time to come as they strive to grow up the ladder on the ATP rankings.
Nigerian Tennis Live will keep monitoring developments preceding the tournaments and publish a regular update as things unfold.