Savage Set To Become First Ever Nigerian To Play Para-Standing Tennis

Kayode Savage, a Nigerian tennis player and coach, has been accepted as one of the players who will be playing the 2024 Para-Standing Tennis World Championships.

The Para-Standing Tennis World Championships is a tennis event organized for tennis players with a certain degree of physical challenge, but can still stand on their feet to play tennis.

About 100 players from more than 20 countries are expected at the 2024 edition of the event which is billed to take place in Turin, Italy, and Nigeria’s Savage is already listed as one of the participants.

By this acceptance, Nigeria Tennis Live reports that he will become the first-ever Nigerian player to play para-standing tennis and will be playing in the World Championships.

The Singles and Doubles tournaments will be held on a red clay surface with Dunlop ATP balls and the Nigerian participant will playing in the PST1 – a category with disability only on one hand.

Kay Kay, as the Coach is fondly called, excitedly shared the piece of news with Nigeria Tennis Live on Thursday, 22 February, 2024, noting that the dream was fast becoming a reality.

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He said: “After initially hearing about it from Nigeria Tennis Live, I contacted the people that matter in the sport and after a while, the Vice President of the Para-Standing Tennis body reached out to me about a tournament scheduled for June and I registered.

“Since then, I have been following up and they asked me to confirm the level of my disability and I sent them a picture and video to confirm that. They have since been following me on Instagram and even reposted one of my videos”.

Savage was eventually confirmed as one of the players who will be participating in the competition and this news hyped him up.

“I was recently confirmed as one of the Africans on the list of players who will be playing in the competition this June. Although I saw that (Eliphas) Maripa (from South Africa) is also on the list, I don’t know if there are other Africans there. I’m yet to check the full list.

“It’s a very big one for me. I am very happy, I am very excited that it is happening. It is actually what I have been dreaming and praying for.”

Nigeria Tennis Live will be monitoring activities leading up to the competition holding in Turin, Italy from 20 June, 2024, and keep all our followers updated.