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The NNPC/SNEPCo Futures Tennis Championship will serve-off on May 27 at the National Stadium, Lagos Tennis Centre with the round-robin playoffs, the organisers, International Tennis Academy (ITA) have revealed. It will end on June 1 at the Lagos lawn Tennis Club, Race Course.

According to ITA, the tournament is assembling the best players in three age categories – Boys & Girls 16s, 14s and 12s with the Girls 16s event expected to be the most keenly contested.

The top eight or nine girls in the event, who have shown tremendous promise and have a fair shot at the title, are now called “the musketeers” for their competitiveness and friendship. They can surely be trusted to keep the spectators on their toes.

The girls are Omolade Adeyemi (Ondo), Rebecca Ekpeyong (Akwa Ibom), Omolayo Bamidele (Ekiti), Favour Moses (Kaduna), Toyosi Adeusi (Ekiti), Ngowari Jim-Jaja (Rivers), Chidinma Ezeh (Anambra), Mary Udofa (Kogi) and Oiza Yakubu (Lagos).

Three different girls in the age category, Bamidele, Ekpenyong and Aderemi, have won the last three tournaments, but all eyes will be on hard hitting Favour Moses from Kaduna to join the band wagon of winners at this event.

The Boys 16s event is also a high-stake one, where defending champion, David Dawariye from Rivers State is expected to face a very stiff opposition from Abuja-based Suleiman Ibrahim, who lost a close final in the last tournament and got a loud ovation when he was nominated as the most outstanding player in the boys’ events.

The ITA said they are optimistic that the tournament would help in preparing the boys and girls in the 16s for the senior tournament coming up on June.

Culled From Guardian