The technical director of Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF), Saidu Musa has revealed many advantages that the country has gained from hosting the J30 Tour in Abuja.
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Musa disclosed in an exclusive interview with Sports247 that the competition, which is officially known as ITF World Junior Tennis Tour, helped Nigeria produce top players who recently made the country proud by defeating Uzbekistan in the Davis Cup qualifiers.
Musa, who is also the ongoing J30 compettion coordinator/director in Abuja, added that the event also serves as the next level towards professional status for tennis players.
“The J30 event is the entry level for professional tennis players all over the world. For junior players, normally, we have J30, J60, J100 and J200, up to J500.
“Among all the categories, J30 is the lowest and the entry level for professional tennis events. We have been doing this in Abuja for five years.
“It is a means of getting young players to key into what is expected of them in the professional ranks,” Musa expatiated.
He then disclosed the specific gains that have come for Nigeria from five years of hosting the J30 events in Abuja, top of which is the production of current tennis stars for the country.
Musa pointed out, “We have a number of good players who graduated from the past events in Abuja. As a matter of fact, our key Davis Cup players for this year, who played for us against Uzbekistan, they are all products of J30 events since we started five years ago in Abuja.”
He, however, noted that funding is a major hurdle that hinders the participation of many Nigerian players in the competition, as they can hardly afford its high cost of registration, even when it is subsidised by the federation.
The NTF’s technical buff noted ruefully, “Nigeria’s participation has not been encouraging like we want it to be. In as much as we want many of our players to feature, it’s not easy for them.
“In fact, to play at this level of tennis tournament, the participant must have a player’s pin that costs $70 … which is almost N90,000 just to play in this competition.
“A lot of Nigerian players can’t afford that amount. So, what we try to do at the federation is to get foreign players who can pay $70 for participation and we reduce the cost for Nigerian players to $35.
“As much as possible, we also try to get well-meaning individuals at the stadium or across the country to sponsor registration fees for some of our players.”
Musa enthused that this year’s ongoing J30 Tour in Abuja will be as beneficial for Nigerian tennis, in terms of producing future stars for the country, as were the first four editions before it.
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