Nigeria's Quadri Aruna (left), Egypt's Omar Assar (second left), Senegal's Ibrahima Diaw (second right) and Egypt's Ahmed Saleh (right) will represent Africa at the WTT Contender Series tournament in Oman.

Aruna, Assar Lead African Contingent At WTT Contender Series

Last updated Mar 2, 2022

Africa’s highest-ranked table tennis players Quadri Aruna of Nigeria and Omar Assar of Egypt along with other stars, will feature at the first World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Series event in Oman, tagged the WTT Contender Muscat.

The competition commenced at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex over the weekend. Aruna alongside Frenchman Simon Gauzy and China’s Wang Chuqin were added to the list of stars in Oman by the organisers.

Aruna, the number three seed in the Men’s singles and seventh seed Assar, will both start their campaigns from the main draw which gets underway on Wednesday. Aruna is drawn in the first round against Belgium’s Cedric Nuytinck.

Assar will slug it out against China’s Sun Wen and Senegal’s Ibrahima Diaw will confront China’s Zhou Qihao, while Egypt’s Ahmed Saleh will take on Portugal’s Joao Monteiro in the first round as well.

Also, world number five and tournament top seed China’s Liang Jingkun leads the way in the Men’s Singles as the highest-ranked player in the field. He will be seeking to maintain his perfect record at WTT Contender events, having won back-to-back titles in Slovenia last year.

Joining Liang in the title race are Aruna, Gauzy, and Chuqin, all three are expected to challenge for top honours at the season opener, along with the rest of the strong field who will have their eyes cast on their positions in the world ranking.

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Aruna, ranked 11^th in the world, took the spot of Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yun-Ju following his withdrawal.

A good result in Muscat will provide players with valuable ranking points with one eye on the lucrative Singapore Smash 2022, scheduled for next week after the WTT Contender Muscat.

The WTT Contender Muscat offers a total prize purse of $75,000 shared equally between both genders. The champions of each competition will walk away with 400 International Table Tennis World Ranking Points across the men’s and women’s singles, as well as the doubles and mixed doubles competitions.

Chidi Nwoke/ITTF Africa.