The Executive Vice-
\nChairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta,\u00a0 said the commission had planned to increase the prize-money for its sponsored lawn tennis championship.
\nDanbatta disclosed this in a statement obtained by The Tide source in Lagos at the weekend.
\nThe Tide source gathered that the telecoms regulatory body earmarked N11 million for the maiden edition of the championship which started on May24 and ended on December 5.
\nThe statement said that the first four-winners of this edition of the league went home with N5 million, N3 million, N2 million and N1 million respectively.
\nIt stated that the planned review of the money was to encourage more clubs to participate in the next edition of NCC Lawn Tennis Cup.
\nAccording to the statement, it is hoped the increase in the prize will encourage more individuals, corporate bodies and institutions to raise teams to compete.
\n\u2018\u2019We also plan to provide other reward schemes for outstanding players in the tournament to encourage them to strive harder in singles and doubles performances.
\n\u2018\u2019We sincerely believe that our young men and women are capable of becoming world champions in this game since the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step.
\n\u2018\u2019Competitions expose the players and ensure that they practise more and play more.
\n\u2018\u2019The NCC Tennis Cup provides players an opportunity to express themselves and prepares them for other competitions, as we have seen in this maiden edition,\u2019\u2019 it said.
\nIt stated that the commission\u2019s objective for the sponsorship of the league was to take tennis to all parts of the country and to locations which had never witnessed standard tennis competitions before.
\n\u2018\u2019As a corporate social investment, we have profound understanding that these sports have unifying potentials for Nigerian sports men and women from various parts of the country.
\n\u201cIt is also known that more activities in this sport will bring additional value to the list of sports where Nigerians can excel beyond our shores.
\n\u2018\u2019We have witnessed this edition and have seen that a lot of our players have standards, as high as those we have seen in the international circuit.
\n\u2018\u2019We were told that no Nigerian has been able to reach the stage achieved by Nduka Odizor because of lack of support and sponsorships,\u2019\u2019 it said.
\nIt would be recalled that Odizor reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
\nThe statement added that it was hoped that through NCC\u2019s support, the recognition of the Lagos State Government and other corporate bodies, players would surpass the feat in near future.
\nReports say that Team Tombim won the maiden NCC Tennis Cup, after it defeated the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
\nTombin got the sum of N5 million, the NSCDC received N3 million, Team Kalotari which came third got N2 million and Team Ogun that came fourth went away with N1 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Executive Vice- Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta,\u00a0 said the commission had planned to increase the prize-money for its sponsored lawn tennis championship. Danbatta disclosed this in a statement obtained by The Tide source in Lagos at the weekend. The Tide source gathered that the telecoms regulatory body earmarked N11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}