14th June, 2012
President of Nigeria Tennis Federation, NTF, Engr. Sani Ndanusa is glad that the country’s wheelchair players will take part at next year’s Wheelchair Tennis World Cup in Italy.
Nigeria’s spectacular performance at the recent World Team Cup Wheelchair Tennis Championship earned the country an automatic qualification in the World Cup from the International tennis Federation, ITF.
Nigeria, the reigning African champion, was noted by the ITF as one of the teams with huge potentials to excel at the top level of the game.
An elated Ndanusa, who was appointed a developmental committee member for wheelchair tennis by the ITF in 2011 said Nigeria’s 2-1 win over a highly-rated Swiss team in the BNP Paribas World Team Cup in Seoul, Korea last month was rated as one of the most memorable moment of the championship, which featured 24 countries with Nigeria placing eighth in Group II.
“The ITF has always wanted to use wheelchair tennis as a way of empowering the physically challenged and as Africans; the ITF knows that physically challenged people face enormous task in life.
“It is very appealing to the ITF that a country like Nigeria is really developing with great pace in wheelchair tennis,” said Ndanusa, who doubles as President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC.
The Nigerian team, made up of Beijing 2008 Paralympian, Wasiu Yusuf, Alex Adewale and Jude Uwaize are awaiting the official confirmation of the country’s participation at the forthcoming 2012 Paralympic Games in London.