50 Countries Set For Governor’s Tennis Cup

No fewer than 50 countries
would be represented at the forthcoming Governor’s Tennis Cup tournament scheduled to begin in Lagos on October 13, an official said.

President of the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF), Engr. Sani Ndanusa, disclosed this to newsmen in an interview.

“The event is going to be one of the federation’s biggest programmes for the year,’’ he said.

According to him, the two-week competition will be accompanied by training programmes for umpires and a kiddies’ tennis clinic aimed at “catching the children young’’.

Ndanusa said the tennis tournament which would end on October 27 would be for both male and female players, and would help in enhancing players’ grading.

“It is graded for the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) points. So, if a player features and makes any advances, he is going to be ranked in the world.

“But we are expecting players from more than 50 countries to participate,’’ he said.

The NTF president said the training programme at the competition would be a train-the-trainers programme to help improve the level of officiating in Africa.

“We will use the international tournament as an avenue to refreshen the minds of the umpires,’’ he said.

Ndanusa however said six umpires from Nigeria would participate in the training programme, with eight players to represent the country in the competition.

He said a special camping programme was organised for the Nigerian representatives for two weeks in Lagos in order to improve Nigeria’s chances at the competition.

“With this, we are hopeful a Nigerian will advance in rank at the end of the tourney,’’ the NTF president said.

He also said the international tournament would help expose the Nigerian players to performing against other professionals from around the world.