The sorry state of Nigerian tennis!
Categories: Tennis
Written By: Segun Odegbami
Stop lamenting about the state of Nigerian tennis. Since the exit of David Imonite, Sadiq Abdullahi and Tony Mmoh, Nigeria has faulted badly in the production of great or exceptional tennis players. Although I have been playing social tennis for over twenty years, I have not seen (with apologies to my friend, Godwin Kienka, for his efforts that seem like a drop in the sea), until the Aripa Tennis Academy in Osun State, any major and authentic tennis project that has succeeded in discovering and developing tennis players in Nigeria. I have often wondered why that is so. Now I know why.
I wish I did not go to the National Stadium last weekend. I have deliberately not being for quite a while. The sight of the stadium from afar is enough for eyesore for me. I am part of the glorious past that saw and experienced the best of the National Stadium, Lagos. I also immensely benefited from the use of its world-class facilities and infrastructure at the time in the golden era of the 1970s and 1980s in Nigerian sports. The National Stadium was Mecca. From dawn to dusk it bristled with life, sports and social activity. The fields, courts, tracks and pools were busy. The Cancan restaurant was a social hub attracting people from all walks of life to the beautifully and brilliantly lit nights.
The National Stadium and the National Institute for Sports served their purpose as the twin centres of sports development, and sportsmen would be found everyday and everywhere in the stadium complex area training or competing.. Almost all the various national teams trained and camped there for major international competitions. Between 1972 and 1975 the complex easily and conveniently hosted the largest congregation of athletes at the 2nd All Africa Games, and the 1st and 2nd National Sports Festivals that included juniors and intermediate athletes from all over the country. That was the memory of the stadium I wanted to keep. To do so I kept away from the place as much as possible to avoid seeing the mess it has turned been turned into by those that do not appreciate its place and significance, even now, to the history and future of sports in Nigeria. I can’t find words to describe the depth of my pain at the depth of the stadium’s decay.
In the 1990s sports development effectively stopped in Nigeria. International competitions served as training and testing ground for the athletes, and the state of the local facilities worsened due to lack of usage and maintenance. Through the next decade and half the National Stadium became a carcass of its old self. The main bowl became so bad no international match could take place there again. Everything in the complex is in such bad shape that it would probably cost as much money to fix it now as it cost to build it then. In all of this I my assumption had always been that the part of the stadium that suffered the worst neglect was the football facility. How totally wrong I was!
I always had the impression that the tennis courts were in good shape since they seemed to be in use for competitions on a yearly basis.
I had cause to visit the lawn Tennis courts of the National Stadium this past weekend. One of the students of the International Sports Academy, Wasimi, was registered to compete at the CBN Lawn Tennis Championship ending this weekend. I had to go watch him play. That’s what took me to the courts again after over a decade of absence.
I wept! The centre court, once the pride of the section, was baring its teeth in anger, and weeping for lack of attention! The seats in the terraces looked like a scene from the debris left by a rampaging tornado. It is unbelievable. The plastic seats were all broken and their ripped, mangled and jagged remains stare into the confused eyes of all those who knew what it looked like in the past and what it has become today.
I remained there for over three hours watching the most boring and lowest quality competitive tennis I have ever seen in my life. If that was the best on offer in the country at the moment I shall no longer worry about the cause of the decline in Nigerian tennis. The state of Nigeria’s premier lawn tennis courts speak!
November 25th, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Now I am really scared of what I will see when I come home. I always wondered why our players cannot hold out against the foreign players when they meet during tournaments. I know coaching is a big factor, but that the courts are “dead” is something I am still trying to comprehend. Ah, this is not good. If I did not know how honest a person you are big Seg, I would’ve said you are just making a bad painting look worse. Stories like this can discourage one but to be honest with you, it only stirs up my resolute to make tennis come alive again in Naija. We can do it, I can feel the concern in your voice. Together it can be done. LET’S DO IT
November 25th, 2008 at 9:41 PM
My big brother Segun,
The last time we met was at the lagos lawn Tennis Club in 1987. Before then we have watched each other doing our thing in soccer and in tennis. I know you love the game. I will be in Nigeria next year and I hope you will extend an invitation to me to visit you so that we talk tennis. Please visit the http://www.nigeriantennisfoundation.com. There is hope.
Former national Tennis Champion, 86, 87, 88.
Sadiq Abdullahi
December 31st, 2008 at 4:19 AM
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.SORRY THAT WE WERE UNABLE TO MEETO FOR LUCNH DURING MY MOST RECENT VISIT TO LAGOS/ASABA.
MY LAYER BARRISTER OGADI WAS TRYING TO REACH YOU IN ORDER TO SET UP LUNCH/MEETING BUT HAD THE WRONG PHONE NUMBER.I WILL BE BACK IN LATE JANUARY/09
February 5th, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Hallo from Germany,
I read this articel very interestly, even I search all the time for Nigerian Tennis. I tryed
to reach for weeks now, to reach somebody oficial of the Nigerian Tennis Federation. My son, who is a Nigerian,is14 years old and Nr.8 in the German Rankin
under 14. He bit three times the Nr. 1 of Germany and two times the German champion last seson. He lost not one Match against any German in his age. What I
like to know is, If there is any oficial turnament or Davis Cup or other exibitions in his age in Nigeria. His name is Promise Iwere. Please, If you have any telefone number or internet adress please send it to mail@schaengel-squash.de.
MfG Andreas Hubbert
February 16th, 2009 at 6:53 PM
Hello,
About twenty years ago, I started playing tennis at the national stadium in Lagos. The zeal and the excitement of playing in the sun under the watch of Coach Ekong, Late Agori, Ubochi, Akinloye etc was good. In 2007, I visited Nigeria and went back to the national stadium and it wasnt what I expected at all. The courts were in very bad shape. It was dead and nothing close to what I remembered. I am in Canada and I recently formed a facebook group called: Nigerian Tennis. Please encourage people to join this group so that members can meet others who love and care about tennis in Nigeria and discuss ways to help revive this great sport.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:12 PM
Hello uncle Segun,
Thanks for this website which i stumbled upon while trying to find information on Nigerian Tennis. Your love and passion for the game of tennis as well as the comments of other Nigerians on this site have made my belief that tennis in Nigeria is not dead, and this has strongly indicated to me that the work we are doing in a project which we are currently working upon will not be in vain.
To inform you, i was an aspiring athlete in Nigeria in the late 80′s and early 90′s. Without boasting, i believe i am a naturally talented sprinter and i also had strong passion for Tennis. I trained under coach Pere in Nitel Amatuer Athletics Club and later under coach Goddy in Pergersus Amatuer Athletics Club and i also knocked ball for about a month at the National Stadium Tennis Court.
Unfortunately, i could not break even, not because i never wanted to, neither because of lack of strength, but because of the ever present disjointed program of of approach to sports development in this country. Uncle Seggy, imagine the fact that with other colleugues of mine, more often than not we walk or jogg to National Stadium without adequate food in our stomach and back home same the following day. Please can someone anwser me! How can we have world beaters under this kind of arrangement that continues till date. Not to mention are also the lack of facilities and inability of our managers to maintain the existing ones.
To cut the long matter short, it was that situation that made me to say then, that one day i will come back to do something in sports and i have choosing tennis with my team as our target piont.
To qoute the words of Zheng Jie of China who made it to Wimbledom Women Semi-final in 2008 in which she said that China is capable of producing world No 1 player in five years, i believe that Nigerians could do the same in about the same time or two or three more years later, if we believe in ourselves and exclude political beraucracies and run sports as business which it ought to be.
Thanks Chidi from Lagos.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:55 AM
Bless you Chidi and good luck!
April 25th, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Great to have met you in Raleigh ,NC while visiting Monidafe you surely gave me hope that Nigerian football shall rise again.In our dialog then, I stated that Amodu needs to call on Etuhu, and it has now come to pass.Is it politics or are there God fathers in Nigeria or is it an ethnical issues that we can not look beyond our personal drives(self interest) and strive for a social interest to select a formidable ELEVEN, be it probable of possible as it used to be referred to?
By striving for a social interest, we can also achieve our selfish interest . Lets accommodate all Nigerians that are willing and ready to play for their motherland at home and in the diaspora, a Nigerian is always a Nigerian and the passion that we have for soccer has led lots of us in the diaspora to financially facilitate ways to keep up with soccer at home and abroad, in especially soccer as it is been played by Nigerians both professionally and locally.
My point directly is, lets mobilize the Nation to find a way to regain the pride that the Eagles or Nigerian soccer used to have( I remember days when English/Brasillian… teams will come to Onikan Stadium to play stores and other teams, and to their surprise in most cases discovered the passion and the high level of sportsmanship and fan base that exists here in Nigeria). Mr Amodu’s list for May 27th still reflects the same mentality, let him bring in NEW,YOUNG and hungry players in to the fold.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:59 PM
what can I say? my heart is warmed by these responses and am starting to think ..maybe all is not lost for nigerian tennis but am not so sure. since its not a sport that features very highly on the common man’s agenda unlike football. agreed that we have failed on the home front to encourage tennis what is happening to the diaspora? does anyone know anybody of nigerian parentage or ancesrty who is anything in world tennis be it official or player junior or senior? yet all you have to do is watch international soccer or football to see the likes of agbonlahor and the ameobis. the question is do we consider tennis to be an elite sport? why are our boys born in europe and america never make it it tennis? remember Tsonga?there is also this girl from Austria whse father is from Tanzania.can you tell me how many twenty year old from oshogbo who knows who Nduka Odizor is? but ask him to name the first nigerian to play grasshopper fc he will tell you. I think personal effort will go a long way.Anna Ivanovic said they used to train in dried out swimming pools in serbia not even on tennis courts.now they have two world number ones and at least two great men’s player. ALL IS NOT LOST!
December 12th, 2009 at 8:15 PM
greetings to you Segun!
you are a light at the end of the tunnel,
Ours is a Tennis Magazine Aimed at helping to ignite the Passion for Tennis.
as a wordsmith, your contributions to the growth of Nigerian tennis cannot be Over Emphasized.
we Wish to Speak to you.
Keep up the Good Work.
strokestns@yahoo.com.
March 19th, 2011 at 3:05 PM
yes this is the state of tennis in nigeria,but we really do not have to wait for the nigeria sport association in other to try develop tennis in nigeria.I will try to create solutions to this problem,and if any one of you gentlemen agree with me,pls email me at annieberry2004@gmail.com……..thanks
March 29th, 2011 at 8:18 AM
Keep up the good work guys. I am always available for any form of assistance towards the development of tennis in nigeria. I used to watch my father fight so hard back in his day just for this vision.
Former sec. NLTA Late Charles o Itabor.
email me at aitabor@yahoo.com
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:54 AM
The talent in Nigerian athletes is amazing. It seems strange that not many names from Nigeria figure on the ITF rankings. I am sure when like minded individuals get together a new way to promote high quality tennis in Nigeria can emerge.
I did my schooling in Government College Sokoto in the 80s. I played a bit of tennis on the cement courts over there. I am now in India playing club and state level tournaments and in my free time doing tennis coaching for talented persons.
I was twice 5th ranked in the National Scrabble Championship and the Mens Champion in Checkers. Nigeria has great Scrabble players because of the Govt support. If the same support is extended to Tennis players then undoubtedly Nigeria will produce top international tennis players.
May 11th, 2012 at 7:16 PM
Hello Uncle Segun,
I recently watched a documentary on Roger Federer. I learn’t he started playing tennis at a very young age. It is so sad, that there are no facilities available for our children to develop in different areas of sports aside football.
I looked up other countries and there are institutions for tennis available for children as young as 3. It is called mini tennis. I feel very strongly that an institution or a club should be developed for different types of sports. This will encourage the children to further pursue the sport to an international level.
I think we need to campaign on bringing back the era of sports in Nigeria. There are so many graduates without other options of earning an income, but if they were in some type of sports, to reasonable degree, they will earn good income.
Hopefully, you will hear about mini tennis club soon.
May 12th, 2012 at 1:04 AM
Hi Olufunke,
Mini tennis is just that, tennis played by children. They play on half size courts, use smaller rackets, softer, bigger balls and lower nets, hence it is called mini-tennis.
Apart from the balls and rackets used, there does not need to be special facilities or institutions for mini tennis. Or anything like a mini-tennis club. Whatever is there for full sized tennis is simply halved and you have mini tennis.
I don’t quiet understand your statement that graduates don’t have other options? Is that not the reason of getting an education? To give one options?