Nigeria will have only two representatives at Africa Junior Tennis Championship holding in Kenya.
Only the Adetunji sisters, Aderotimi and Adetayo, will fly Nigeria’s flag at the Africa Junior Tennis Championship, AJC, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, between March 18 and 23, PREMIUM TIMES has exclusively gathered.
Five Nigerian junior tennis players, Joseph Umeh, Emmanuel Idoko, Sarah Adegoke and the Adetunji sisters had originally made the cut for the Kenya tournament; but the other three qualifiers failed to make the trip on Monday owing to ongoing school exams in their secondary schools.
The Coach of the National Junior Tennis Team, Mohammed Ubale, in chat with PREMIUM TIMES before boarding the flight to Nairobi, said the hope of the nation now lies solely on the Adetunji sisters.
“We going with just two players, Aderotimi and her sister Adetatyo, the other players have exams in their schools so they cannot make it,” Mr. Ubale explained.
The coach admitted that the absence of the trio from the Nigerian team would obviously lessen the winning chances of Nigeria and said that the absent players have more experience.
He, however, said that the Adetunji Sisters are equally good and would not let Nigeria down.
Over 120 players representing 27 countries will congregate in Nairobi in March for the 36th Africa Junior Tennis Championship.
The event will involve male and female U-16 and U-14 players.
The Championship will start with a warm up tournament from March 12 to 18 and, thereafter, the tournament proper will commence.
The Tournament Director, Francis Mutuku, said this is to give the players time to get used to the murrum surface on which the game will be played.
The countries that will participate in the event are Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho and Libya.
Others are Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia and Zimbabwe.
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