The Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) has decided to assemble a mixture of youthfulness and experience as former national champions, Abdulmumin Babalola and Shehu Lawal made a return to the Nigeria’s Davis Cup team.
In the list of players made known to NationSport on Monday by national coach, Rotimi Akinloye, Babalola and Lawal, who are the best doubles partner for Nigeria in the Davis Cup tournament will be joined by youthful, Michael Moses and Sylvester Emmanuel who were finalists at this year’s CBN Open.
Babalola and Lawal have not featured for Nigeria in the last three years while Akinloye justified their inclusion by saying, “their experience count particularly in the doubles event.”
Moses, who won the McDan West African Championship in Accra, Ghana at the weekend, was listed alongside his arch-rival, Emmanuel who is also in fine form in recent times.
According to Akinloye, the players were selected after a careful consideration as the team is expected to be contenders at the 2016 Africa Zone Group lll of the 2016 Davis Cup tournament holding next week at the at the Antananarivo University in Madagascar.
The 12 teams in the group will be drawn into two pools with each pool made up of six teams. The two tops teams in each group advancing to the semifinal stage while the finalists are promoted to Europe/Africa Zone Group II in 2017.
At Nigeria’s last appearance in the tournament, the team finished sixth after losing 2-1 to Benin in a positional play-off, while Nigeria’s best Davis Cup performances have been semifinal finishes in Europe/Africa Zone Group I, in 1988 and 1989.