Nigeria, Egypt, others set for African clubs table tennis tourney
Atotal of 12 teams have been confirmed for the African Club Championships which will begin on Thursday, August 1 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.
At the two-day event, the ENPPI of Egypt will be heading the men event while Ahly Club of Egypt, the defending champion, has been listed as the number one seed in the women event.
The best two players in the continent, Aruna Quadri of Nigeria and Egypt’s Omar Assar of Egypt will compete in the colours of ENPPI of Egypt and the Ahly team will be led by African women champion, Dina Meshref.
The host country, Nigeria, according to the African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), will be represented by SOJ TT Club of Lagos and Remo Stars TT Club of Ogun in the men event while G20 of Abuja and Cannan Queen of Calabar will hoist Nigeria’s flag in the women event.
Apart from Nigeria and Egypt, other countries including; Congo DRC, Togo, Ethiopia, Benin Republic, Senegal, and Rwanda will also be represented
in the continental championship.
The President of ATTF, Khaled El-Salhy said the tournament would help the players to tune up for the ITTF Africa Cup being the first time any African nation club would stage three prestigious tournaments at a stretch.
“The tournament is a good test for the African players and a good preparation for the main event ‘ITTF Africa Cup,’ which is the qualifying event for ITTF World Cups.
“We have a good number of entries and I hope ITTF can consider staging a World Clubs Championships in which the Champion in Africa can compete with the champions of other continent,” El-Sahly said.