national coach of Nigeria
Wheel Chair Tennis. In this interview, he speaks on
his involvement in the game and plans to make Nigerian athletes compete
favourably with other players in the world.
How would you describe the state of wheel chair tennis since its introduction in Nigeria?
I want to tell you that wheel chair tennis is flourishing. I say this because few months ago, in May to be specific we returned from Turkey where Nigeria placed eleventh in the World Team Cup which is the wheel chair version of Davis Cup.
But then, it is different in the sense that players and coaches from many nations of the world converged on one venue unlike in the able-bodied tennis where countries travel to meet countries in their home ground. So, like I said earlier, it is flourishing because considering the poor economic situation of the country, we are still moving from one country to the other playing wheel chair tennis. Currently, one of my top players, Alex Adewale is in USA playing a couple of tournaments. And also in a few days time, we will be having coaches and players clinic in Abuja supported by Golden Penny Noodles.
They have been supporting us since the inception of wheel chair tennis in the country and what they have been doing is trying to see that the game grows at the grassroots. I have had so many discussions with the chairman of the company and his marketing department and they assured me that they want to use this clinic to test run the game towards staging a big tournament sometime in November.
Are you satisfied with your team placing 11th at the world level?
I am satisfied with that position because when you consider the circumstances surrounding our travelling to Turkey, you will give kudos to the team. We had few hitches as regards finance and sponsorship, but with the good effort of Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) President, Alhaji Sani Ndanusa, he was able to bankroll the trip for us to go to Turkey. But then we arrived late and there was a kind of fatigue on our players.
We arrived just a day after the tournament began and we were walked over by Spain. We however proceeded to play other countries. We lost to Belgium which is one of the top leading wheel chair tennis playing nations in the world. We played Croatia in a very tough game which we also lost, but we were able to beat the host country, Turkey to place eleven.
My own joy at that tournament was that we were not made a laughing stock and most importantly, we beat the host country. It is not easy in any competition for you to go to a host nation and beat them. So, to finish 11th in the world is a great achievement and better than coming last in such a big competition.
You were formerly coaching the ablebodied tennis players; what motivated you to introduce disabled athletes to the game?
Really, I was involved in training ablebodied tennis players and I have groomed a lot of tested players in Nigeria. Currently, the Nigerian number 1, Henry Asanye, who few months ago won the Central Bank Open was discovered and groomed by me. So, having been involved in able-bodied tennis for ages something made me to make a switch.
I was on a trip to Europe for a coaching course, then wheel chair tennis had not grown so much, but in the ITF syllabus, at one point they would play video clips of wheel chair tennis to coaches that had not known the game. As soon as the video was played over and over, a conviction came into me that I have done a lot and paid your dues in coaching ablebodied tennis players and is high time I give that same knowledge to the physically challenged brothers back home.
So, as soon as that conviction came, I began to think about it and later concluded that it is right for physically challenged people who sometimes hang on the streets begging should be encouraged to take to the sport, since it is not ideal for one to leave his home begging.
With the sport, many of them have become worthy citizens in the society as is obtainable in developed countries of the world. And today, I can proudly sit down and feel fulfilled about what I started because I now have players playing at the top level.
What efforts are you making to ensure that wheel chair tennis is introduced in other states of the Federation apart from Lagos and Abuja?
The clinic in Abuja which will kick off from July 21-28, iand is not only restricted to the Federal Capital Territory, but the North Central. You know the North Central is a big region itself. I have done this for a couple of times, I have been in the South South, South East and the far North which is North East and now I am going to the North Central.
The states that are invited to participate in this clinic are Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Taraba, Kogi and the host Abuja. So, we have seven states to gain a lot of knowledge about the game.
We are using the clinic as a talent hunt and a developmental programme. I often go out on my own to impact the knowledge to athletes and make the physically challenged persons to embrace the sport.
So, if we have spirit-minded individuals and corporate bodies coming to support such a programme, I think by the year 2020, we won’t have physically challenged persons in our society begging because every one of them will have something meaningful to do and a career base to live on.
Having said this, I want to tell you that one of the major objectives of the clinic is to introduce the sport to players and some states that normally may not have access to get down to Lagos before they get involved in wheel chair tennis.
Also, with the information I have as a coach, by next year the sport will be introduced in the National Sports Festival and also will soon get into the All Africa Games.
Therefore, we want to give every Nigerian that is physically challenged an opportunity to be involved in the game so that by the time we want to invite players to the national camp, we will have a lot of quality athletes to invite to camp to represent Nigeria. Those are the reasons why we are taking the game to the North Central.
Most times your athletes complain that part of the reasons why they do not perform well is because of the type of wheel chair they use. How are you going to liaise with the Federation to ensure they provide them with the most modern wheel chairs?
What the players said is true because over the years, we have been having problem of equipment and the most important one is wheel chairs.
When you don’t have a proper wheel chair, by the time the ball bounces you might not be able to wheel fast compared with the modern wheel chairs which require only a touch and the chair flies to the position of the ball.
I have written to many spirit-minded individuals, companies and the Federation alike for assistance, but of course where you have a situation where Federations are solely run by the government, it becomes tough to break even, considering that there are a lot of bureaucracies on the way to pose as a stumbling block. But recently, we have received four modern wheel chairs donated to us by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which I think from now it is going to do a lot of good to us and that was why we test-run them at the Turkey tournament.
Also, the new board of NTF has met and deliberated particularly on wheel chair tennis and they have resolved that they are going to procure about 20 wheel chairs which the President, Alhaji Sani Ndanusa, told me personally that he had already filled some forms to some companies abroad in request for wheel chairs.
So in the nearest future we will not have only one or two players at the top, but we will be having about 20 players scattered all over Europe playing wheel chair tennis at the highest level.
Why do you sound so confident?
I’m confident because it is going to enhance more technical and tactical play. Like I said earlier, the old wheel chairs are very heavy to push, but the modern ones are lighter and even if you are a new player, once you get on the modern wheel chair, you will not find it difficult to adjust to the game.
That again is a motivational factor for companies to come in. Just like I said Golden Penny Noodles, a division of Flour Mills of Nigeria PLC, is supporting us to run a clinic in Abuja by giving us promotional items. Recently, one of our former sponsors, New Era Foundation, which has been sponsoring our tournaments, also sent a representative to have a meeting with us in this regard.
Talking about New Era Foundation, they have been sponsoring wheel chair tennis for some time now; what are you expecting from them this year?
They have the experience of sponsoring wheel chair tennis already and I think they are going to do more compared to what we use to receive from them in the past. The sole founder is now in a better position to give us more than what we use to have. And for her to have sent somebody to support us shows that she has the interest of the physically challenged at heart.
How would you describe the state of wheel chair tennis since its introduction in Nigeria?
I want to tell you that wheel chair tennis is flourishing. I say this because few months ago, in May to be specific we returned from Turkey where Nigeria placed eleventh in the World Team Cup which is the wheel chair version of Davis Cup.
But then, it is different in the sense that players and coaches from many nations of the world converged on one venue unlike in the able-bodied tennis where countries travel to meet countries in their home ground. So, like I said earlier, it is flourishing because considering the poor economic situation of the country, we are still moving from one country to the other playing wheel chair tennis. Currently, one of my top players, Alex Adewale is in USA playing a couple of tournaments. And also in a few days time, we will be having coaches and players clinic in Abuja supported by Golden Penny Noodles.
They have been supporting us since the inception of wheel chair tennis in the country and what they have been doing is trying to see that the game grows at the grassroots. I have had so many discussions with the chairman of the company and his marketing department and they assured me that they want to use this clinic to test run the game towards staging a big tournament sometime in November.
Are you satisfied with your team placing 11th at the world level?
I am satisfied with that position because when you consider the circumstances surrounding our travelling to Turkey, you will give kudos to the team. We had few hitches as regards finance and sponsorship, but with the good effort of Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) President, Alhaji Sani Ndanusa, he was able to bankroll the trip for us to go to Turkey. But then we arrived late and there was a kind of fatigue on our players.
We arrived just a day after the tournament began and we were walked over by Spain. We however proceeded to play other countries. We lost to Belgium which is one of the top leading wheel chair tennis playing nations in the world. We played Croatia in a very tough game which we also lost, but we were able to beat the host country, Turkey to place eleven.
My own joy at that tournament was that we were not made a laughing stock and most importantly, we beat the host country. It is not easy in any competition for you to go to a host nation and beat them. So, to finish 11th in the world is a great achievement and better than coming last in such a big competition.
You were formerly coaching the ablebodied tennis players; what motivated you to introduce disabled athletes to the game?
Really, I was involved in training ablebodied tennis players and I have groomed a lot of tested players in Nigeria. Currently, the Nigerian number 1, Henry Asanye, who few months ago won the Central Bank Open was discovered and groomed by me. So, having been involved in able-bodied tennis for ages something made me to make a switch.
I was on a trip to Europe for a coaching course, then wheel chair tennis had not grown so much, but in the ITF syllabus, at one point they would play video clips of wheel chair tennis to coaches that had not known the game. As soon as the video was played over and over, a conviction came into me that I have done a lot and paid your dues in coaching ablebodied tennis players and is high time I give that same knowledge to the physically challenged brothers back home.
So, as soon as that conviction came, I began to think about it and later concluded that it is right for physically challenged people who sometimes hang on the streets begging should be encouraged to take to the sport, since it is not ideal for one to leave his home begging.
With the sport, many of them have become worthy citizens in the society as is obtainable in developed countries of the world. And today, I can proudly sit down and feel fulfilled about what I started because I now have players playing at the top level.
What efforts are you making to ensure that wheel chair tennis is introduced in other states of the Federation apart from Lagos and Abuja?
The clinic in Abuja which will kick off from July 21-28, iand is not only restricted to the Federal Capital Territory, but the North Central. You know the North Central is a big region itself. I have done this for a couple of times, I have been in the South South, South East and the far North which is North East and now I am going to the North Central.
The states that are invited to participate in this clinic are Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Taraba, Kogi and the host Abuja. So, we have seven states to gain a lot of knowledge about the game.
We are using the clinic as a talent hunt and a developmental programme. I often go out on my own to impact the knowledge to athletes and make the physically challenged persons to embrace the sport.
So, if we have spirit-minded individuals and corporate bodies coming to support such a programme, I think by the year 2020, we won’t have physically challenged persons in our society begging because every one of them will have something meaningful to do and a career base to live on.
Having said this, I want to tell you that one of the major objectives of the clinic is to introduce the sport to players and some states that normally may not have access to get down to Lagos before they get involved in wheel chair tennis.
Also, with the information I have as a coach, by next year the sport will be introduced in the National Sports Festival and also will soon get into the All Africa Games.
Therefore, we want to give every Nigerian that is physically challenged an opportunity to be involved in the game so that by the time we want to invite players to the national camp, we will have a lot of quality athletes to invite to camp to represent Nigeria. Those are the reasons why we are taking the game to the North Central.
Most times your athletes complain that part of the reasons why they do not perform well is because of the type of wheel chair they use. How are you going to liaise with the Federation to ensure they provide them with the most modern wheel chairs?
What the players said is true because over the years, we have been having problem of equipment and the most important one is wheel chairs.
When you don’t have a proper wheel chair, by the time the ball bounces you might not be able to wheel fast compared with the modern wheel chairs which require only a touch and the chair flies to the position of the ball.
I have written to many spirit-minded individuals, companies and the Federation alike for assistance, but of course where you have a situation where Federations are solely run by the government, it becomes tough to break even, considering that there are a lot of bureaucracies on the way to pose as a stumbling block. But recently, we have received four modern wheel chairs donated to us by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which I think from now it is going to do a lot of good to us and that was why we test-run them at the Turkey tournament.
Also, the new board of NTF has met and deliberated particularly on wheel chair tennis and they have resolved that they are going to procure about 20 wheel chairs which the President, Alhaji Sani Ndanusa, told me personally that he had already filled some forms to some companies abroad in request for wheel chairs.
So in the nearest future we will not have only one or two players at the top, but we will be having about 20 players scattered all over Europe playing wheel chair tennis at the highest level.
Why do you sound so confident?
I’m confident because it is going to enhance more technical and tactical play. Like I said earlier, the old wheel chairs are very heavy to push, but the modern ones are lighter and even if you are a new player, once you get on the modern wheel chair, you will not find it difficult to adjust to the game.
That again is a motivational factor for companies to come in. Just like I said Golden Penny Noodles, a division of Flour Mills of Nigeria PLC, is supporting us to run a clinic in Abuja by giving us promotional items. Recently, one of our former sponsors, New Era Foundation, which has been sponsoring our tournaments, also sent a representative to have a meeting with us in this regard.
Talking about New Era Foundation, they have been sponsoring wheel chair tennis for some time now; what are you expecting from them this year?
They have the experience of sponsoring wheel chair tennis already and I think they are going to do more compared to what we use to receive from them in the past. The sole founder is now in a better position to give us more than what we use to have. And for her to have sent somebody to support us shows that she has the interest of the physically challenged at heart.
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