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Benson Isichei, a National tennis coach on Sunday called on his compatriots at state level to assist the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) in discovering talents at the grassroots.

Isichei said in Lagos that since it was mandatory for coaches to discover talents in their areas, they should collaborate with NTF in the effort to hunt for new talents.

``This is the only way to develop the sport. The federation does not have eyes at all the nooks and crannies of the country.

``It is the coaches that are at the various states. They know who is who in tennis within their localities, for the federation to groom to stardom,’’ he said.

According to him, there will be minimal reliance on `ageing and tired’ players if talented players are discovered at the grassroots and available to the federation on a regular basis.

``The ageing players’ skills are already known by their foreign counterparts but with newly-discovered ones, it will be difficult to predict them for a while.

``I appeal to these coaches to assist us because as time lapses, most of the old players will not be able to withstand the rigours of the sport,’’ he said.

Isichei said some of the upcoming players like Christian Paul, Micheal Micheal and MaryLove Edwards would soon become threats to their foreign counterparts, because of their improving skills.

``Most of the players we hope should go for international competitions this year are mainly the upcoming players, especially in the cadet category and they have been doing the country proud,’’ he said.

Isichei said quality young players were at the grassroots, awaiting to be discovered and urged the state coaches to step up talent-hunting.

He said the federation would be working on more developmental programmes to nurture the newly-discovered talents to stardom.