Team Nigeria departs for Davis Cup

Team Nigeria is scheduled to depart Lagos today for Madagascar for the 2016 Davis Cup Euro Africa Group 3.

The four-man team is made up of Shehu Lawal, Abdulmumin Babalola, Moses Michael and Sylvester Emmanuel.

Lawal is also the leader and playing captain being his 10th involvement in the Davis Cup.

The three-time CBN tennis champion, Lawal will feature in the doubles alongside Babalola, himself a five-time winner of the CBN Open, regarded as the biggest domestic tennis tournament in Nigeria.

Abuja-based duo of Michael and Emmanuel, who both featured in the recently-held 2016 CBN Tennis Championship will play in the singles.

“We are looking forward to getting promotion to group two because this is a very strong team.

“We have used some of the recent international tournaments like the ITF Tombim Open and Dayak Championship in Abuja to prepare,” declared Emmanuel, 19, who is the youngest member of the team.

The week-long tournament serving off at the University of Antananarivo on July 11 will feature 12 countries -Nigeria, Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia and Rwanda.

Angola, Cote d’Ivoire and Libya withdrew. Teams will be drawn into four pools (A-D) of three teams with the pool winners advancing to the semi-final after a round-robin matches.

Winners of Pools A and B will be drawn to play Winners of Pool C and D to determine who gains promotion to Euro Africa Group 2 in 2017.

The 11th and 12th placed teams will be relegated while the rest will remain in Euro Africa group C in 2017.