Nigeria, others jostle for seven Wild Cards
Nigeria would be joining other nations of the world to scramble for the only 'seven Wild Cards, provided by the International Tennis Federation [ITF] for their participation in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
The world tennis ruling body made this known at its just concluded 2004 Annual General Meeting in Barcelona,Spain. President of the Nigeria Tennis Federation [NTF] Engr. Sani Ndanusa who attended the meeting told nigeriasports.com Wednesday, that the ITF would decide on those to benefit from the Wild Cards by the end of June. "The meeting was well attended and many issues bothering on the development of tennis especially in countries where the game still needs a great deal of improvement were addressed,"he said."But it was revealed that only seven Wild Cards are available and we realised we just have to continue with our lobbying." Nigeria had since been lobbying for two Wild Cards,one for a player in the women's singles and the other for representation in the men's doubles. "The basis for our lobby is that we rank among the countries whose players have improved tremenduously in the last couple of years.Most particularly if you consider the performance of our tennis team at the last All Africa Games in Abuja,"explained Ndanusa. He stressed that the NTF is optimistic that Nigerian players will benefit from the seven Wild Cards,more so when a Nigerian Chuka Momah,is a memeber of the Athens Olympic Games Committee for Tennis. The Wild Cards,according to the ITF, are for players across the world who could not make the main draw for the Olympics through the qualifiers. 0
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