Youths jostle for N17 million at NCC tennis league

The Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), Tennis League attracted lots of youths across the country to compete for the mouth-watering N17 million cash price for the first, second, third and fourth winners.

The NCC tennis league is part of the Corporate Social responsibility of the Commission which aims at harnessing young talents and getting them ready for both National and international competitions.
According to Mr Godwin Kienka, Director of the International Tennis Academy, (Organisers of the NCC Tennis League), “the entire point of the NCC Tennis league is to serve as a transition to the professional ranks.”

He said the standard of the players will continue rising from frequent trainings and competitions, also the players would be exposed to other states in the country as they keep traveling to states for the competition.
His words: “The league has been very exciting, very productive, we are particularly excited by the combination that we have here between Ofiko and the Next Generation, the Ofiko team is parading about National Champion.

The entire point of the NCC Tennis league is to serve as a transition to the professional ranks, we have the Junior Circuit which is bringing them up to 18, all the players playing for the Next Generation are products of the ITA Junior Circuit, now we have a transition which is like the missing link between the junior programme and going professional, now we have the league which is introducing about 60, this week along, we have 6 ties across Nigeria, and that will happen every weekend until the end of November.

The standard will keep rising because they are practicing and competing every week, so apart from exposing and helping the players understand the entire countries and meeting different people, it has a uniting effect.

The Tennis league is taking top class players to cities, which otherwise will not have too class players, who have not seen top class players, and I think that the NCC Tennis League has done a very good job of not just growing tennis, but taking tennis to all the nooks and crannies of this country.
“This is the best thing that has happened to Nigerian sports in terms of sponsorship, it is the greatest addition to Nigerian sports since independence, about from the football league, there is has not been a major sponsorship that has impacts the nation like the NCC Tennis League.”

When asked the states where the competitions are holding, Mr Kienka said “right now, we are playing in 6 different cities, that is minimum of 6 states, but it goes round, it doesn’t stay in those cities, the next one we will probably have 4 different cities, so it’s going round the entire country. There are 12 states, that is about 11 cities hosting this even, because two of the teams are in one city, so we have 11 cities, 12 states hosting this event, hopefully, we will take the semi finals to Enugu, so by design, we are able to reach nearly all the top tennis playing States in Nigeria.”

The overall winner at the competition will be awarded N7 million, the second runner up takes, N5 million, the third place winner goes home with N3 million, while the fourth place takes N2 million.
One of the players, Sylvester Emmanuel expressed optimism that he would emerge the winner at the end of the competition, stressing that he has beaten most of his competitors at the group stage.

In Lagos, I don’t have any opponent there that will give me a tough challenge, the ones that will give me tough challenges, I just finished with one in Lagos, and the other ones are in the other groups, I think when the matches will start getting interesting is when we come out of the group stage.”
Speaking on the Nigerian Tennis generally, Emmanuel said “Nigerian tennis is still catching up, we need more of this tournament, this one is not bad, they are really trying for the Nigerian players, I was in even surprised that just in a space of about two weeks, I have been to 3 states already, playing tournaments.

When asked what he would do with the money if he wins, he said: “I have been playing tennis for 14 years, am hoping to win this tournament, when I win, I win invest the money in my tennis career, because I don’t have a sponsor currently.”