10th September, 2014
Damilare Okunola
Nigeria’s team to this year’s World Team Cup in Africa’s Zone III, will today take on their Zimbabwean counterparts in their first match at the competition which served off on Monday in Cairo, Egypt.
Ranked 100 in the world as at the last ranking on 28 April, Nigeria’s quartet of Clifford Enosoregbe, Henry Atseye, Sylvester Emmanuel and Umaru Balami will seek to improve on the country’s seventh place finish at last year’s event.
Making her 6th consecutive appearance at the Davis Cup, Nigeria will also seek to move closer to her biggest ever finish; semi final of Group I in 1988 and ‘89.
Benson Ishicheli, the non-playing captain who took the players to the tourney, expressed confidence in the players, saying: “I can assure you that the players will put up a good display here despite the presence of relatively more-experienced players from other parts of the continent.
“We will not be disgraced in the competition because we have carefully chosen the players to prosecute this year’s tournament and by God’s Grace, we shall do well.”
As at yesterday, Nigeria was the only country yet to play a match in the competition’s Pot 1 which also has Madagascar and Nigeria’s 2015 AFCON qualifiers nemesis, Congo.