Ifedayo Akindoju, president of Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF), said the country needs more tennis academies to excel in the sport.
Akindoju told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday, that establishment of academies was a major reason why other countries do better than Nigeria in tennis.
“One thing that all other countries that progress tremendously in tennis have, and that we don’t have are the academies and that is where the focus should be.
“ We are trying hard to put that in place but of course as a federation, we cannot finance such projects.
“We have been communicating and collaborating with private entities and corporate bodies to take it as a project.
“The model we have is what we call the tennis school. So, imagine if we have a school where all the students play tennis.
“It may be a regular school that has tennis facilities and has the game added to their curriculum, such that they play tennis while attending school.
“In doing that we discover talents and people with extra skills, later upgrade them to high performance centers and train specially further to see them compete with their peers across the world,’’ he said.
Akindoju, who was elected vice president of Confederation of African Tennis (CAT) Zone 2 in 2023, said one of his requests to the continental body was to help build a tennis academy to further improve the game in the country.
