Çukurluoğlu And Bayrak Also Transferred To Adana

The Adana Tennis, Mountain and Water Sports Club (ATDSK) continues to be the home of tennis champions in Turkey. Having already brought to Adana national tennis players Ergi Kırkın, the number one player on the national team representing Turkey in the Davis Cup, and Yankı Erel, the number two player, ATDSK has now transferred to Adana 14-year-old Zeliha Nil Çukurluoğlu from Ankara, who has made the national team five times at the ages of 12 and 14, and Kuzey Kerem Bayrak from Samsun, one of the most successful players in Turkish tennis and a holder of three Tennis Europe championships. Speaking at the ceremony, which was also attended by the athletes' families, ATDSK President Ali Refah Keskin said, "These signatures are for Turkish tennis. In fact, we are all serving our flag under the leadership of our Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Turkish Tennis Federation. As ATDSK, we have charted a course for ourselves to recognize the value of tennis players like Nil and Kerem, to protect and safeguard them, and to increase the number of good players. Whether it's our successful tennis players like Çağla Büyükakçay and İpek Soylu, who have brought many firsts to Turkish tennis, we are one of the distinguished clubs in Turkey, having contributed players to the Olympics and developed our youth academy. We will continue to develop worthy athletes in accordance with the purpose stipulated in Article 1 of our bylaws, which were established in 1969." Keskin noted that ATDSK, which established Turkey's first international tennis academy in Adana in 2019, the 50th anniversary of its founding, under the head coachship of Renato Vavassori, founder of the Vavassori Tennis Academy in Italy and one of the five experts of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), has invested over 50 million lira in the last 10 years. He continued, "We are working tirelessly to serve our crescent-star flag. Our athletes are training to become future champion rackets with the Italian-model program. Athletes from various countries come to Adana for training camps at our club, while our athletes travel to Italy for training opportunities. Despite all this, we don't feel we are sufficient. We continue to improve academically, as coaches, as personnel, and as management, and we continue to contribute to tennis together with every member of our club." Zeliha Nil Çukurluoğlu and Kuzey Kerem Bayrak thanked ATDSK President Ali Refah Keskin and the board of directors for giving them the opportunity, saying, "We are very excited and very happy. Hopefully, we will take full advantage of this opportunity and aim to climb to the top 250 in the world rankings and compete in the Grand Slam."