Attracted by the organization coupled with the juicy total prize money, more countries like China, Russia, Portugal, Ukraine, Finland, Togo and Benin Republic have signed up for the first Lagos International Table Tennis Classics.
Despite confirmation by the Main Organising Committee (MOC) of 12 countries for the tournament at the weekend, the MOC was yesterday overwhelmed by players’ request from these seven countries signifying their interest to be part of the competition, which will serve off with qualifiers for Nigerian players on Thursday at Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.
China’s Li Yang and Shao Jieni as well as Russia’s duo of Sergey Bratchenko and Zora Novikova will be in Lagos for the championship.
According to the Competition Manager, John Peters, the entries arrived on Sunday and we cannot turn them back as the competition continues to attract players across the globe.
“We are overwhelmed with the quality of entries and for us, it is good that we are staging the tournament for the first time and a lot of players have been showing interest to be part of it. We are excited with this development and we are hoping that this will be the dawn of a new thing in table tennis in Nigeria,” Peters said.
As an approved International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and Africa Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) tournament, the Lagos Classics is a points garnering event for world ranking and it is the highest prize money competition to be staged in Africa.
It is organised by the Main Organising Committee (MOC) of Lagos International Sports Classics in collaboration with the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF).
Players would compete in 10 events in the junior and senior categories with winners in the men and women singles getting $5,000 and $4,000 respectively while players that make it to round of 16 of the singles event will get cash reward.
ATTF helmsman, Khaled El-Salhy lauded the board of NTTF for staging such tournament together in such a short period of assumption of office and such championship is long overdue.
“I want to commend the NTTF board for their ingenuity and I am very happy that Nigeria with its remarkable traditional weight in sports and specially table tennis can agree to organise the tournament. I am hoping for a resounding success and one of my missions is to assess the organisation, as well as, facilities. We also want to use this event as a test for ITTF/ATTF title event in the near future,” the ATTF boss said.
With this, El-Salhy disclosed that Nigeria might be considered for a major tournament in 2014.
His words, “ITTF/ATTF is looking to organise a brand new event next year tagged: “2014 ITTF-Africa Top 16 Cup,” which should be in the second half of next year as qualification for ITTF World Cups next year, and we believe it will be good to start this competition in Nigeria.
“I am hoping for a successful 2013, as well as envisaging that the Lagos International Classics will be among the ITTF World Tour Calendar in 2014 and this is to prove to ITTF that Africa could host sanctioned events in a professional way.”
