Teams set for NCC Tennis League semifinals

Defending champions, Team Offikwu is on track to making good its boast of retaining the NCC Tennis League title it won on its debut last year.

The Kaduna-based team, led by Sylvester Emmanuel and now reinforced with two former national champions, Shehu Lawal and Henry Atseye, won all its round robin matches to top the White Group. The Team, which also has 2017 CBN Open women’s singles champion, Sarah Adegoke, will meet Blue Group runners-up, Team Civil Defence, in a tie scheduled for Abuja December 2 and December 3.

The Abuja semifinals has been tagged the ‘final before the finals’ by tennis followers as Team Civil Defence also has three national champions who are in good form. The Abuja-based para-military outfit has current national champions, Abdulmumuni Babalola and Christie Agugbom, as well as Clifford Enosoregbe in the team.

The other semifinal, which will hold at the Enugu Sports Club on November 18 and November 19 will feature two newcomers, Team Muller of Lagos and Team Ndoma-Egba of Abuja.

Team Muller, which also scored a perfect five in the round robin matches to lead the Blue Group, has Joseph Imeh, who is yet to lose a match in the League, as the lead player. Imeh is backed by Emmanuel Idoko, Mohammed Mohammed and top highly ranked female player, Ronke Akingbade.

Imeh will however have to contend with an Ndoma-Egba team that has Thomas Otu, a former national champion, who has combined with Emmanuel Paul and hard fighting women’s top player, Aanu Aiyegbusi to get through to the semifinals.