Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri who recently joined a German Club in the Bundesliga will lead top 15 tennis players to the 2020 ITTF Africa Top 16 Cup in Tunisia, while defending champion, Egypt’s Dina Meshref leads a contingent of 15 female players to the tournament.
Ahead the tournament, the African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) has unveiled the seeding list for the $25,000 prize money tournament holding on February 24 to 26.
Nigeria’s Quadri and Egypt’s Meshref have been listed as top seeds in the men and women events at the three-day tournament which serves as the continental qualifiers for the 2020 ITTF World Cup in Germany and China.
The 32 participants made up of regional champions and top ranked players made the final list with obvious absence of Nigeria’s veterans – Segun Toriola and Olufunke Oshonaike.
The Nigerian duo will be missing out from the competition for the first time in the last one decade having won the tournament in the past to represent Africa at the World Cups.
Men’s defending champion – Omar Assar of Egypt is seeded number four behind Ahmed Saleh of Egypt and Olajide Omotayo of Nigeria.
From the seeding, Quadri and Assar will likely clash in the semifinal just like what panned out at the 2019 ITTF Africa Cup in Lagos.
According to the format of play, both events (men and women) shall be played in a group of round robin system with four groups of four players in each category, while all matches will be played best of five games in the first stage.
In the second stage of the tournament, winners and runners-up of all groups will be drawn to play the knockout for all positions till the winners emerge.
