Impressed with the performance of Nigeria at the last African Junior Championship, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has listed Nigeria among the four teams that will compete at the qualifiers for the World Team Championship.
According to the General Manager of Confederation of African Tennis (CAT), Hichem Riani, Nigeria’s selection was based on the team’s outing in the U-14 event of the AJC hosted by South Africa.
In the boys’ u-14 qualifiers, Nigeria will compete against Seychelles, Mauritius and host – Tunisia with the two top teams qualifying for the ITF World Team Championship holding in Spain.
For the girls’ U-14, host – Tunisia will battle for the two slots with South Africa, Burundi and Egypt. The clay courts of La Marsa in Tunis will host the qualifiers on June 3 to 9.
In the Junior Davis’ Cup qualifiers for U-16 boys and girls, Tunisia will fight for the slots against South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Cote D’Ivoire, Mauritius and Burundi.
For a national junior coach, Mohammed Ubale, this development shows that Nigeria is coming up in the continent having beaten the likes Egypt and Morocco who are dominant in the game in Africa.
“I think this is a good development for us in Nigeria that our players will be competing against the best for the qualifiers and i am hopeful that we can make the final slots. In the past, it was the North Africans that used to make it to the qualifiers, but Nigeria’s performance at the AJC has helped to displace the North Africans and I hope we can capitalise on this and qualify for the main event in Spain later in the year,” Ubale said.
It will be recalled that Michael Osewa edged out three top seeded players to play in the final of the U-14 of the AJC where he was defeated by his Seychelles counterpart to settle for silver.