The president of the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF), Ifedayo Akindoju, on Saturday said more than 20 countries will participate in the 2021 World Tour Tennis Tour J5.
Akindoju disclosed this at the closing ceremony of the VEMP Tennis National Open Championship at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja.
According to him, the championship will commence on Sunday till the next two weeks.
“Some of the players have started arriving and we hope they will be here and we’ll start playing.
“We have players from over 20 countries already signed to be here to partake in the two-week Junior World Tour Tennis in Abuja,” he said.
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He said the federation will organize two more competitions before the end of December.
“We are going to Lagos for Ray oil tennis championship in the first week of December.
“We are coming back to Abuja for another tournament which is the Abuja Tennis club Cup,” he said.
The president said he is grateful that the third edition of the VEMP National Open Tennis Championship ended successfully.
“We will continue to improve on the development of the sports in the country. This is the first time we had what we call VEMP consolation.
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“It is like the back draws so players who lost at the preminilary and the qualifiers get the opportunity to play again.
“They even won prize money and the winners of the tournament will get the white card for next year’s edition of the VEMP open tennis championship,” he said.
He said: “We need tournaments to popularize this game in Nigeria. Sports have not been well promoted in several places.
“We want people to be aware of tennis and one of the major ways we can do that is to ensure that there are tournaments all over Nigeria,
“We are taking the tournament to the states, we are going to be having a lot of tournaments this time,
“We are starting from this National tournament going forward, we are going to Benin, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Enugu and all other parts of Nigeria.
“We need to popularize the Sports so that participation can increase,” he said.
NAN reports that VEMP Limited, in conjunction with Nigeria Tennis Federation, organised the third edition of the National Open Tennis Championship.
The Championship, which began on Nov. 4 is expected to end on Sunday.
(NAN)
