15th January, 2013
Five Nigerian junior tennis players have made it to the African Junior Championship, AJC, which holds in Kenya in March this year.
They achieved this feat at the just concluded AJC qualifiers in Lome, Togo. The Nigerian contingent to the qualifying tourney also won 3 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals.
The players who made it to the AJC include; South Africa-based Emmanuel Idoko, US-born Nigeria player Aderotimi Adetunji, and her sister Adetayo, Joseph Umeh and Sarah Adegoke.
Coach of the team, Ubale Mohammed, expressed his happiness while speaking with P.M.NEWS shortly after the team returned to Nigeria from Togo yesterday. The coach was impressed with the players’ performances, especially the Adetunji sisters, who were representing the country for the first time.
“The players performed well, while the Adetunji sisters; Tayo and Rotimi equally gave very good account of themselves. They were representing Nigeria for the first time and they were quite good in the games,” Ubale said.
The tennis coach however appealed to the Nigeria Tennis Federation, NTF, to prepare the players early before the AJC proper in March.
He said: “We need to prepare the team early enough for the AJC because it’s one of the biggest junior circuits on the ITF calendar. It’s also our best opportunity to expose the players to other good junior players on the continent.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria lost the top spot to Ghana on the last day of the qualifier, as the team picked the second position of the tournament for the second year running.
Nigeria competed with eleven other West African countries, which included; Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroun, Benin Republic, Togo, Senegal, Gabon, amongst others.
The African Junior Championship will take place from the last week of March through the first week of April.
—Damilare Okunola