Davis Cup second seed, Jonathan Igbinovia insists that only early preparations and exposure to international tennis tournaments would put Nigerian players in good stead to beat Ukraine in the Euro-Africa Zone Group II relegation playoff match in August.
“The reality of playing in the Davis Cup Group 11 has really dawned on us the players and the administrators as we have all now realised that it is an entirely different ball game from playing in Group III or IV.
“Two significant things that I have learnt and I expect others to have also learnt is that a team playing in the Euro-Africa Group II needs to have players who are very active on the Circuits, week after week, so that they would cultivate the mentality of champions at any given stage.
“As a matter of urgency, we the players have to be supported to go on tour, so that we can compete favourably with our counterparts in Group II, so that we can avoid the sort of embarrassing results, which we recorded against Poland in our first round match, which we lost 5-0," added Igbinovia, who is the most capped Nigerian Davis Cup player of all time.
And reacting to Igbinovia’s call for early preparations, non-playing captain and national tennis coach, Rotimi Akinloye has said that the team’s planned foreign training tour to Europe, ahead of July’s All Africa Games in Algiers, was being programmed in such a way that it would afford the players the chance to play in some ITF-sanctioned tournaments, before August’s Davis Cup date with Ukraine.
“The Nigeria Tennis Federation is working out a comprehensive plan with the National Sports Commission to ensure that the planned training tour for the All Africa Games is used to expose our tennis players to tournaments in some quality tournaments in Europe, so that our Davis Cup players would be in the best of shape for the match against Ukraine,” said Akinloye.
Source: vanguardngr.com
