Following the conclusion of a 2-day technical workshop for coaches in Nigeria, National Head Coach, Rotimi Akinloye has said the coaching workshop was to improve the quality of coaches in Nigeria, and also revealed that the Federation is planning to conduct national certification courses for coaches in the first quarter of 2020.

Speaking about the idea and brains behind the workshop, Coach Akinloye said, “The idea is to better the Nigerian coaches and the brains behind it is the NTF President, Engr. Ifedayo Akindoju and Mr Edmond Ajoge, who over the past 1 year have engaged the resource person in Coach Luis De Sousa from Portugal to help Nigerian coaches in making sure they better their knowledge in coaching and to have a structure in place so we can help our tennis development.”

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L-R: Rotimi Akinloye, Luis De Sousa and John Atiomo during the 2-day workshop in Abuja

While he noted the success of the workshop, Akinloye, who’s also the NTF’s technical director, said the Federation is looking to have another workshop and conduct national certification courses for all Nigerian coaches, as part of its coaching plans for 2020.

“The workshop was very successful. We just brought about 42 coaches together from all over the country, we know we have over a thousand coaches,” Akinloye noted.

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Coaches during the technical workshop in Abuja last week.

“The Federation is planning the 1st quarter of next year to have such workshop and to conduct national certification courses for all the Nigerian coaches. This is in line to what is obtainable in every other place in the world. If you have an ITF certificate in the UK for example, you have to do the LTA certification to be able to coach in the UK.

“What we are seeing now is an improvement of what we used to have, not taking the shine away from the PTR or the ITF courses. It’s just to make everybody to belong as a licensed coach in Nigeria.”

“We want to have a change in attitude in our ways of coaching using the modern teaching methodology because this will go a long way in growing our current crop of young players.”