EMMANUEL Idoko caused two major upsets at the 34th Africa Junior Tennis Championships held in Gaborone, Botswana to settle for a silver medal in the boys Under-14 singles event. Now, his performance at the championship has led the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to pick him as one of the players that will be part of the European tour this year. The tour is being bankrolled through the Grand Slam Development Fund, which the ITF established in 1986.Disclosing this to The Guardian yesterday, national junior coach, Mohammed Ubale said the ITF technical team chose Idoko following his feat at the AJC, adding, that the tour would afford him the opportunity to be part of the ITF team that would train in four countriesFrance, Germany, Holland and Belgium.The tour, according to Ubale, would last for two months, with France being the take off point. In the letter sent by the ITF, the tour will take place in four countries and it will take off in France as the training base for all the players chosen all over the world for the championship.During the tour the players would be tutored by top tennis coaches after which they will take part in competitions in these countries. I am indeed happy that our efforts are yielding positive fruits because this is the first time a Nigerian player will be enjoying this opportunity from ITF, he said.Ubale, who led the team to the AJC, re-emphasised the importance of grassroots development of the game, saying that it holds the key to Nigerias re-emergence in the continent and the world at large.He added: I had always said that focusing on grassroots development would yield more results in no distant time and this is becoming a reality with the duo of Sarah Adegoke and Joseph Imeh spending one month at the ITF training centre in South Africa while Umaru Balami is also a student at the centre. And with time, all these players will graduate to the senior level and begin to represent Nigeria at international competitions. We still have lots of these players in the country, but lack of sponsorship has been a major challenge for most of them.Meanwhile, Idoko alongside Imeh and Sylvester Emmanuel will represent Nigeria at the World Team Qualifiers holding next month in Egypt.
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