The Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) has rolled out the names of players who will be participating in the Davis Cup World Group II Playoffs in Lagos.
This announcement was made during a media parley organized by the NTF in collaboration with the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club on Monday, 12 January, 2026, in Lagos.
Nigeria will be playing against Uzbekistan in the World Group II Playoffs for a chance to reach the World Group II for the first time in decades having reached the World Group I semifinals on two occasions in the 80s.
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The event is scheduled to hold from 7-8 February, 2026, inside the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan, as approved by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), organizers of the Davis Cup event.
NTF President, Victor Ochei, before revealing Nigeria’s team for the event, explained that Nigeria battled a possibility of losing the hosting rights for the event after Uzbekistan lodged a complaint against Nigeria.
He said: “This media parley is to express to you that Nigeria has been given the hosting rights to host the Davis Cup World Group II tie between Nigeria and Uzbekistan. Precisely, it will be holding between the 6th and the 8th of February, 2026.
“I’ll tell you that this competition was handed to us after our victory in Zimbabwe last year. Davis needed us to submit our questionnaire – what you need to fill in, to show the court size, and everything that has to do with the competition for them to certify you fit to host and we had that all done by the 19th of November,”.
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Speaking further, the former Speaker of the Delts State House of Assembly, noted that “To our surprise, when ITF opened up on the 7th of January, we were informed that Uzbekistan appealed the hosting by Nigeria and that threw everybody out of balance. They set up a panel and the Chairman contacted everybody.
“They allegation against us was that there were security concerns in Nigeria, that we changed venue from Abuja to Lagos for security reasons and they were not satisfied with that and that we did not submit our questionnaire before the time elapsed.
“However, these two allegations, weighty as they were, were false, because there was no time NTF changed the venue.
“At the end of the day, by the time the submissions were made, and Uzbekistan saw our reply, they also saw the reply to the ITF, only yesterday (Sunday, 11 January, 2026), they wrote a letter to say they were withdrawing their appeal”.
The NTF President, after his full remark, listed the names of the players expected to represent Nigeria at the World Group II Playoffs in Lagos. They are: Alafia Ayeni, Christopher Bulus, Daniel Adeleye, Canice Abua and Michael Emmanuel led by non-playing captain, Benson Ishicheli.
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The most notable inclusion in the team is Ayeni, a Nigerian-American, who has played at the Lagos Open event before, and has played in all four junior Grand Slams in the past.
The ATP 658 ranked player (as at January 13, 2026) is one of the players Nigeria will be banking on to help secure a World Group II slot for the first time in decades.
Nigeria Tennis Live will keep our readers updated on other developments leading to the Davis Cup event which promises to be exciting.
