The organisers of the recently concluded Rainoil Tennis Championship have been hailed for the timely sponsorship of the national tournament, the first on clay in the country in a really long while.
This encomium is coming from none other than the president of the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF), Engr. Dayo Akindoju, who noted that the tournament came at a time when the federation was looking at adding more tournaments to the national calendar.
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| Engr. Dayo Akindoju believes that Nigerian tennis is definitely getting better. |
According to him, tennis is beginning to get better in Nigeria and the inaugural edition of the Rainoil championship is a testament to the fact that things have started changing with tennis in the country.
“This tournament came at the right to time to discover new talents and help with the development of the ones already playing on the Nigerian circuit,” Engr. Akindoju said at the closing ceremony of the clay court championship won by Abuja-based Henry Atseye.
He noted that such tournaments will be accompanied by grassroots championships as well, as the NTF is looking at rebranding tennis in Nigeria and growing it from the scratch.
“We shall have a lot of this tournament in Nigeria and like I said in the past, we are working on grassroots tennis as well, because we need to discover new talents to replace the ones that are there now.
“Special thanks to the organisers of the Rainoil championship for being very dedidated and for their role in ensuring that tennis is getting better in Nigeria,” he added.
The NTF is also presently hosting a junior tournament in Abuja tagged Play Your Age Tennis Championship, to discover new talents and to curb the menace of age cheat in the country’s tennis circuit.
Nigerian Tennis Live reports that the tournament which started on Sunday, 17 December, with the arrival of the players, will end on Thursday, 21 December, when the players are expected to leave for their different destinations.