Nigerians were taken by surprise following the unprecedented launch of a junior tennis league in the country on Monday, 25 April, 2022.
Coach Kayode Savage, one of Nigeria’s top junior tennis coaches, is the Director of the league meant to help build an unwavering momentum for players within the age bracket of 13 and 16, and the recent development, he says, is just a pilot edition for bigger events to come.
According to him, this edition is just to sensitize Nigerian tennis players, coaches and enthusiasts about the possibility of having such a competitive event in the country.
“We’re starting a pilot project of a junior tennis league, to see how it will work. It’s a skeletal project to see how it will play out,” Coach Kay Kay, as the organizer is fondly called, told Nigeria Tennis Live from the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, where the competition is taking place.
While giving more details about the event, he explained that there are about 11 teams already registered for the competition.
“This was an initiative of one of our parents, Mr. Lucky Nana, and we were tasked with organizing it.
We’re doing two categories, for 13 and 16 and unders. It is a league for clubs in Lagos and outside. So far, we have registered up to 11 teams of different clubs.
“We have Team Ekiti, Team Mainland, Team Akpoborire, Team Ikeja, Team Lagos Lawn one, Team Railway, Team Apapa, Team New Division, among others.
“They’ll be playing two Singles, one female Singles then one male Doubles. Altogether, they’ll be playing four matches and at the end of the day, we’ll see the teams that come top.
“Like I said already, it’s just a pilot project to test run before the mail league kickstarts, probably during the long vacation for the kids,” he explained further while also commending the other Coaches involved in the project, Ibrahim Musa and Godwin Michael.
Nigerians will be more excited about the prospects of having the competition grow into a nationwide event, and last even longer than the now rested NCC Tennis League which helped a lot of Nigerian players with fitness and competitiveness.
Nigeria Tennis Live will update all of our followers on the latest results, reports and action from the tennis league which runs from Monday to Wednesday, 25-27 April, 2022.