Nigerian players need confidence to beat foreigners, says Quadre

After exiting the 2018 Lagos Open Tennis Championship, Nigeria’s teenage sensation, Oyinlomo Quadre believes what is lacking in the home players is confidence they needed to overcome their foreign counterparts.

Quadre, who remains the only Nigerian to progress to the second round said: “The only difference between Nigerian players and the foreigners is the confidence and believe. Most Nigerian players never even believe in themselves before going into the court. It is not that they (foreigners) are better than us in all the departments what we are lacking is the firm belief in ourselves going into the court. We need to always psyche ourselves up and the mental firmness to take on these foreigners is one of the ingredients that is lacking in Nigerian players,” she said.

Also, the Tournament Director, Wale Oladunjoye corroborated Quadre’s claims by saying, “Our youngsters need to do a lot to improve on the court. Take a case of Emmanuel Sylvester that before the commencement of the tournament, I spoke to him and we need to psych these players up. There are something they don’t even need know. They are carrying bags they don’t need.

“Mentoring is very important to their career development. Every individual must have a mentor. If you remember when a young man that stood like a father to Mike Tyson passed on, he started having problems. You must have mentor who are different from your biological parents. These are people that you look up to.

“These young boys and girls need to have such mentors. We have seen a lot of them not yet at their best but they started feeling like they have arrived doing all sort of things that you should not expect from them. These things actually weigh them down. Even their eating habit is wrong. I see a lot of them here and they just behave as they like. You can’t go on the court bouncing up and down when you have eaten something heavy, you can’t play. You see their results, they are losing 6-0, 6-0, if there is something worse than that, they will get it,” he added.