.How Official Website Failed To Publish Reports Of 2014 Gov’s Cup   

By Tunde Oyedele

The Governor’s Cup Lagos Tennis Tournament is organised every year by very credible persons, led by an astute Prince ‘Wale Oladunjoye, the Senior Special Assistant, SSA to Governor Babatunde Fashola, on Grassroots Sports Development.
Eyeonthesports.com reports that Oladunjoye, who leads a team of the Organising Committee of the tournament is a man of honour and his hard work has seen to the huge success of the Governor’s Cup for the past 14 years.
The competition has grown in standard so much that both the Confederation of African Tennis, CAT and International Tennis Federation, ITF rate the Governor’s Cup amongst the top championships on its Calendar, which attracts international ranking points.
However, the enviable height already attained by the Governor’s Cup and some fascinating moments of this year’s edition were completely shut down by the Official Website of the competition, www.governorscuplagostennis.com.
The Governor’s Cup Website was established in 2012 to propagate its activities, but the Media Crew of the site went to sleep and failed to update its features for close to a year. Apart from the 2013 final match report available on the site since November last year, the Website has published just two stories this year.
The first, titled; ‘GCLT Players Surprise Top Seeds At Wimbledon was published on 20 July, 2014, while the second/last, titled; ‘2014 Governor’s Cup Starts on 17th-22nd, Press Conference on the 11th’ (culled from a newspaper) was published on 4 November, about two weeks to the commencement of this year’s tournament.
Eyeonthesports.com however observed that the Website, which was expected to paint the town red with special countdown stories about the event, again went to sleep and did not post Match Schedules & Scores of the 2014 competition.
The negligence on the part of the Media Crew of the tennis tournament reached the height when they failed to publish a single story about the one-week championship on the Website throughout the duration of the 14th edition held at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club in Onikan, Lagos State from 17-22, November, 2014. Similarly, the review of the action packed invitational tournament was no where to be found on the site as at the time of filling this report.
The dormancy of the Website, which could have been an information tool for the players, their families, the media in Nigeria and other African countries, apparently reduced the glamour associated with the Governor’s Cup this year.
Incidentally, the 2014 Governor’s Cup was won by Moses Michael, who made history as one of the few Nigerian players to have captured the top prize, but he was neither recognised nor celebrated on the Website.
Meanwhile, Michael defeated Duncan Mugabe of Uganda 4-6, 6-1 and 6-2 in the Men’s Singles final to emerge champion of the tournament, which gulped about $84,000 in total prize money shared by the winners this year.
Also, another Nigerian girl, Sarah Adegoke made it to the final of the Women’s Singles this year before she lost to top seed, Razafinmahatratra of Madagascar.