By Francis Ajuonuma
After watching Nigeria beat Uzbekistan 3-1 in the Davis cup playoffs over the weekend, a board member of the Nigeria Tennis Federation, NTF, Victor Hemba has revealed the magic behind the success.
Hemba, who is also chairman of the Technical Committee of the NTF as well as the Central Planning Committee, CPC, chairman of the Nigerian Team told jounalists at the post match interview that hardwork and the belief in the quality of the local players to deliver when given the opportunity were the secrets behind the success which has been described as one of the major upset in the competition.
He explaind that the CPC ensured that the Nigerian Team made up of Daniel Adeleye, Canice Abua, Michael Emmanuel, Uchenna Oparaoji and Yusuf Abubakar were provided all they needed to achieved the right results at the top stage.
He lauded the players for rising to the occassion even when not given the chance against a better ranked Uzbekistan side.
”We were able to achieve this because the boys gave their best, they gave their all, very, very vigorously. They worked very hard in camp. We made them sacrifice everything to give us a better result.
”We ensured that they got all that they wanted. They didn’t lack anything and that’s the result, because we didn’t even rely on the foreign players again. We said we’ll do it with the home front. And with the belief we all had, and worked, talking to them tirelessly, we delivered.
”We have known what they do. And we knew where we needed to work on them, and push them a little more to give us results. And that was when we concentrated on them night and day, afternoon, every hour we were on them. Some of us joined in there, so we could know what to put there. We knew exactly where we could talk to them and impact, and the impact worked,” he said.
On the next move for the team, Hemba said that the board plans to engage the players to more international competitions which will offer them the explosure needed to be very competitive in the Davis Cup II proper.
”Though our board is new, is barely three months old. What we’re doing is working on a robust plan. We’re going to take them on competition tours. Give them a lot of matches to play. And I bet you we’ll be there,” he assured
