Nigeria’s wheelchair tennis players have expressed sadness over the country’s failure to participate in the BNP Paribas World Team Cup, which served off last Monday at the Nieuwe Sloot Tennis Centre in Alphen, Netherlands.
The World Team Cup is the wheelchair tennis version of the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup. Nigeria beat Morocco in March to win the African qualifiers held in Nairobi, Kenya, but the country withdrew from the tournament at the last minute.
“This is a bad development for the country because we are gradually fitting into the mainstream of the sport, and this development may give us a setback,” said Remi Basanya, who won this year’s Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) women’s singles title.
The men’s singles winner, Alex Adewale, shared her view with TheNiche. “We’ve been complaining about lack of motivation and now we have suffered a huge blow following this withdrawal. We would have made a mark in the tournament as a way of securing sponsorships and also getting more domestic tournaments,” lamented Adewale.
Nigeria was replaced by Romania. No concrete reason has been given by the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) for the withdrawal from the tournament. Nigeria is Africa’s top-ranked nation in the event, but the gap between the country and closest rivals, Morocco, will get closer at the end of the tournament due to the withdrawal.
