Center Court to be ready by Saturday

Accra, Feb 23, GNA - The Centre Court of the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium in Accra currently under reconstruction for next month's Davis Cup tie between Ghana's Golden Rackets and Finland would be ready by Saturday.

The Centre Court is now named after Ghana's former Top Seed, Frank Ofori.

Nii Saban Annan of the Swiit Handz Construction Ventures who have been working on the court for the past month, told the GNA Sports that the reconstruction is in its final stages of completion. He said the Court, which would host the three-day Euro-African Davis Cup competition, has so far gone through the required process aimed at giving it an appreciable facelift by Saturday, ahead of the arrival of the Finnish team on Sunday.

The Court received its first coating on Wednesday and is expected to receive three other paintings to meet the international requirements. According to Mr Annan, the acrylic hard court has so far undergone some stages of rehabilitation - from the removal of the existing surface through to the re-waxing of fresh terrazzo as well as first coatings. Even though the contractor has remained tight-lipped about the cost to the state on the rebuilding of the Centre, the GNA Sports has gathered that the British-imported paint alone totalled around four thousand pounds.

So far, about 50 million cedis have been spent on other areas of the renovation.

Ghana is billed to host their counterparts from Finland between, March 4-6 in the crucial Euro-African Zone II Davis Cup competition, which qualifies the winner to the prestigious Euro-African Zone I category.

Top seed Henry Adjei-Darko would lead Gunther Darkey, Daniel Omaboe and Salifu Mohammed to represent Ghana in the three-day fiesta. The Finnish would arrive on Sunday, March 27 for acclimatization.