By John EGBOKHAN

Roy Odoko, author of the book “Tennis for Health and Wealth”, visited Vanguard’s corporate headquarters, where he opened up on  trending tennis issues and how his book can be of use to the sports fraternity. Excerpts.

What is the problem with our tennis

The problem with our tennis is that the administrators don’t have the strategies to improve the game. They lack the technical depth on what to do to ensure that our players are winning.. If we can only sit back and do our homework, other nations have developed their tennis, so why can’t we?

If they don’t have the solution, they can copy from other successful nations on how they turned their tennis around. I believe that if they do this we will begin to do well.

What about the whole structure, coaches, federations, state level, national level, and even the role of parents. Even the players, are they hungry enough?

A: The truth is that if a player is adequately trained and prepared, then he will be eager to go out and exhibit his skills. He won’t be scared of the opposition. But if you are not well prepared, you would be scared and unable to know how to handle the situation.

And it starts from the grassroots. If you have cultivated a bad habit from the beginning, it becomes impossible to change the habit. As I explained in my book, the boy who starts playing tennis at the age of 6 would be better than the man who starts playing at old age.

You went to Government College Ughelli, where you had sports facilities but now schools have no facilities for ports.

Even recently, most of the old boys of my school had to come to the aid of the school by renovating and upgrading these sports facilities. We built two new tennis courts for them. Changes in policies always reflect in our sports. If enough funds are allocated to sports and there is a system that will insist on some standards in schools, our sports will thrive. Sports has declined in the country. Even football is suffering.

What are the major highlights in the book that will make a tennis lover or even anybody for that matter, want to buy this book.

That is a very good question: The book tells you the basics, it tells you about nutrition. It tells you how to think, the psychological side of the game. For instance, you can be very good but if you are not mentally okay, you can lose a match to a player that you are better than. How to psyche yourself up when you are down are enumerated in the book.

The book tells you what to do during a match, like there are vital points worth going for or not contesting for. If you don’t know how to pay vital points you cannot win a match. When an opponent is leading 40-0 and maybe 5-0 in a first set the book tells you not to battle him but to save your energy for the next set. Also, the book shows you what professionals do and if you want to copy professionals  and be like them, the book opens up on what you must do.

Looking through this book I can see that you outlined the different surfaces and technical points. The book could be useful to coaches too.

A: Of course, it is good for coaches and those who want to know about tennis. It even tells you the history of tennis and other things that most people don’t talk about.

You are not a coach or a top player, so how did you develop the skills to put this book together.

A: I’ve interacted with coaches, I’ve helped coaches. Whatever I can do, I hope to transfer that knowledge to people. That is why I wrote this book so that people can learn easily and become stars.

When you look at other sports, you see ex players struggling to be part of federation but you don’t see that in the NTF.  If you people don’t raise your voices, how do we rescue the game.

Most of them, I think are tired of the system. But it is high time we started saying the truth so that our sport will be better. Those who are incapable of running the affairs of the association should be told to leave. That’s the bottom line. I think that  the procedure of admitting people into the federation is wrong. Those who don’t know about tennis should not be there. When you put the wrong people there, things are bound to become bad. It breeds corruption. That’s why I insist that if you are not good, you have to go. That is my honest advice.