ITTF Lists Nigeria Open, Confirms Date For Tournament.

ARUNA QUADRI

The International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF, has listed Nigeria Open in its Challenge Series calendar as well as confirms the date for the championships holding at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

Nigeria Open remains the highest prize money tournament among the ITTF Challenge Series with a purse of $46000 and the world table tennis ruling body has also named Algeria’s Mounir Bessah as the competition manager.

For this year, the Nigeria Open will hold on August 9 to 13 with players across the globe expected to complete their registration by July 20. The final entries for singles is July 10 while the final entries for doubles is July 20.

According to the 2017 ITTF Challenge Directives, limited number of entries to players is 180, while only the final entries are taken into consideration by the organizers and the Competition Manager for the participation of players.

In the prospectus released at the weekend, a national association can enter a maximum of six players with the host getting 12 slots in each gender.

However, the tournament will be preceded by the qualification events commencing on Wednesday August 9 to 10 while the main draw will serve off on August 10.

Nigeria’s Femi George is the Tournament Director.

Already, men’s singles defending champion, Finland’s Olah Benedek has confirmed his readiness to defend the title while some European stars have expressed their intention to be part of the tournament.