The national junior ten
nis coach, Mohammed Ubale, has said the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) has built a formable U-18 junior team for the Africa Junior Championships (AJC) in Morocco.
The male players are Mohammed Mohammed, Joseph Imeh, Edward Christopher, Sadiq Tswako and Sylvester Emmanuel, while the female are Sarah Adegoke and Elizabeth Pam.
He said the players, all ranked by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), had been in camp in Kaduna since February  2 ahead of the competition.
The coach expressed optimism that the new team would make the country proud compared with their previous performance in the competition.
He said the former team lost out in the round of 16 singles, but advanced to the doublers quarter-finals at the last edition.
“The preparation is going on well, Morocco has clay court which will be used for the championships, so we had to camp in Kaduna because it has a clay court,’’ he said.
Ubale said the players were selected from the Nigeria U-18 players on the ITF ranking, adding that every player’s dream was to participate in the AJC.
“ The AJC is the biggest junior tennis event in Africa. Our highest ITF ranking player in the competition is 23, which is low. That is to show you the high level of the event.
“The ranking of our players are not that high because they did not have the opportunity to participate in most of the ITF ranking championships.
“ But in spite of that, I know they will make impact in this championships, they are all in good shape and fully prepared for the competition,’’ he said.
The championship will end February 27.