‘Tennis federation will concentrate more on developing junior players’
President of Nigeria Tennis Federation, Dayo Akindoju has said his board will give priority attention to the development of junior players who he said are the future of the game. Speaking to SHOT! at the just concluded Abuja Junior championship, Akindoju
What would you say the Nigeria Tennis Federation has achieved since its inauguration in July 2017?
I got sworn in as president of Nigeria Tennis Federation sometime in July last year, 21 precisely and we have been doing a lot of appraisal on the state of tennis in Nigeria. We now know the areas we have to put in more effort in order to develop tennis.
We have come up with four core areas. One is infrastructure which is very broad and I may not be able to expatiate in details. Second is players development to ensure that there are developmental programmes from grassroots to see players grow from junior to transition and finally professional level. Third area is officiating.
Officiating officials are the custodians of the game of tennis. If you do not know the rules of the game, you may not be able to even run the game properly. We are aware that the qualified officials certified by ITF that we have are very few. Yesterday we concluded one of the trainings where level one officiating course was organised here for 21 tennis lovers. T
he one that happened yesterday was for volunteers. They are people who are not going to be living with the job for they already have their jobs but out of their passion they want to be certified so that anytime they are called upon to officiate, they know what it takes to officiate. We are going to organise four more at the zonal levels.
The fourth area is coaching. This is fundament and big area we are working on. This area has to do with teaching the kids rightly from the young age. This is because once you are not taught how to hold the racket properly at that young age, it is very difficult to correct it later.
How to hit the ball, how to place the balls, the technical part of the game, the kids need to be taught properly, The coaches are the ones who are supposed to be the custodians of these techniques. They are supposed to transmit adequately and properly these techniques to the kids. So we are having arrangements to conduct coaching courses in Nigeria.
We shall continue to upgrade our coaches. Recently, four of our coaches went to Ghana for level 2 officiating course that was organised by the ITF. One of our coaches, Abdulmumuni who is equally a player has qualified to be level two coach. So these are four core areas we are working on
to ensure we improve the level of tennis in Nigeria.
How is your federation sourcing for funds to attend to these four core areas you have enumerated?
Well, we are looking majorly in the area of sponsorship. We are doing proper modules to be able to sell our programmes. Unfortunately we are unable to get any support in terms of finance yet from the ministry. I hear they are planning to support federations but in the last eight months, we have not got any grant or subvention from the ministry.
So we are looking purely into sponsorship from individuals and corporate organisations. For now, we are doing modules for tournaments we can run with N100,000, N200,000 or N400,000. We are not looking for N100m, N200m yet. Give us your N10,000, N100,000 and it will go a long way in helping us to organise tournaments. Sponsorship is one of the major areas we are concentrating on.
Would you say Nigeria is blessed with top talents in tennis?. If yes, why have we not been able to dominate the continent?
The major problem is these four core areas I mentioned earlier that we are concentrating on. If we talk about players development, we are going to be talking about all it takes to play tennis rightly and to advance to the world stage. It is a lot. There is so much to be done. What you do affects how your game turns out to be. The shoes that you wear are they designed for the game?. If you wear the wrong shoe, you won’t play rightly. Use the wrong racket, you won’t play well. We are recreating that path so that we would be able to follow it and be able to tackle these four core areas. I am sure we would be able to pick up and compete properly on the African stage and even go out on the world stage and do as we used to do.
What is your federation doing to ensure steady flow of tournaments for players to compete and develop their talents?
That is the focus. That is part of the second point that I am talking about players development. To develop players, they have to be playing tournaments. So it is very key and so far we are adding tournaments regularly. We are still doing the features.
My company Dayak is still going to sponsor the features that happen from April16. Tombin will start, Dayak will follow and then we have GSL. So we have three weeks of international tournaments in Abuja and immediately after that the CBN Cup will follow. This is the 40th edition and they moved it to Abuja. It will happen from about 10th of May to 19th of May.
And sometime in June-July, we are going to have a new sponsor that will be sponsoring the biggest prize money tennis in Nigeria. It is the tournament that the winner will get N10 million. That will happen between June and July. We have not finalised the date because we want to have it after the fasting. And then normally after the fasting, there is the Davies Cup that Nigeria contingent are going to be competing in Kenya and it is looking more likely to be in July. We have a lot of junior tournaments all over Nigeria that we are initiating.
First time we are going to have north-central Zone hosting a national tournament in Jos. That too will happen in between July and August. We have a new inclusion for tennis and that is Rainoil. Rainoil will happen in November in Lagos and of course we would have Lagos Governors Cup that normally happens in December. Then we have the Dala Hard court in Kano. Furthermore, we are likely going to have the reactivation and rehabilitation of Kaduna Clay Court. We are in touch with the people in Kaduna. We are aware that his Excellency Governor Nasir El-Rufai has graciously agreed to reactive the pavilion and tennis clay court. Once that is done, we would be having an international clay court happening in Kaduna this year.
This means it is still going to be another busy year for tennis in Nigeria.........
As a matter of fact, next year is going to be better. We are doing assessment of facilities first before we know where to go from there. Tournaments are ongoing in the east. In the west, the wife of Ondo State governor is running tournaments, trainings and clinics for girls. In fact tennis tournaments are happening all over Nigeria. I have just got someone who committed N1m to enable us run a tournament. We have also gotten commitments from lot of people who want us to be running junior tournaments in their locations.
So next year we are going to be very busy. Like I said our Major concentration is on the junior players. We need to develop them because the crop of senior players we have now may not go too far, to put it in black and white. However, they have to be there. They have to keep the game going, make sure that the young ones look up to them and support the trainings. Some of them would be converting to coaches and officials in the nearest future.
So this is the direction we are going and so far we are looking for sponsors to help us see that this dream is realised. We are looking for sponsors for junior tennis majorly. They are not as expensive as people may think.
You are one of the major sponsors of tennis in Nigeria. Why are you so passionate about the game?
I started playing tennis in 1974 in a small community in Sapele, one side of Sapele called Ajogodo in Delta State. I still go there to play. I don’t know what else I can do apart from tennis. Apart from my office engagements, if I am not doing tennis, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t do any other sport. My joy and survival as a human being is tied to tennis. I don’t know if I will be able to live, if I don’t do tennis. I don’t know if it is peculiar to me. I can only talk of myself. Tennis is life to me and I can’t live without it. Unfortunately, I have not been able to teach my kids how to play tennis. They do not have interest. I tried but you can’t force kids to do what they do not want.
I don’t know if I will be able to live, if I don’t do tennis. I don’t know if it is peculiar to me. I can only talk of myself