Nigeria, Egypt, 14 African countries for ITTF World Championships
Nigeria and Egypt will lead 14 other African countries to this year’s International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Championships holding in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Other African countries that will join Nigeria and Egypt for the tournament are Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Libya, Morocco, South Africa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia.
The tournament holds May 29 to June 5 and will be organized by the Table Tennis Association of Germany (DTTB) with five individual events - men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles to be competed for at the eight-day championships.
The qualification of the participating teams was based on their attendance of continental tournament held in Agadir, Morocco last year.
Europe dominates the list of eligible teams to enter players for the championships with 45 nations while world champions - China will lead 37 Asian countries to the tournament.
Also, Nigeria and Egypt will benefit from Aruna Quadri and Omar Assar ranking as both players are among the top 100 in the world and this will provide the two countries the opportunity to present four players each while Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and United States are other countries that will parade four players each in the men’s event.
Austria, Belarus, Brazil, China, France, Hongkong, Japan, Korea Republic, Portugal and Chinese Taipei will present five players each while the host Germany is expected to list six players for the competition.
According to the prospectus of the competition, the first round proper of Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles will have 128 places and the first round proper of Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles will have 64 places.