Africa's most embellished desk tennis legend, Segun Toriola, will lead the Nigerian contingent to the 2024 ITTF World Staff Desk Tennis Championships (WTTC) in Busan, South Korea, from February 16 to 25.
In response to the Nigeria Desk Tennis Federation (NTTF), Toriola was picked based mostly on his wealthy expertise and cordial relationship with many of the high gamers of the nationwide workforce.
With the retirement of former nationwide coach Nosiru Sule final 12 months, the federation mentioned Toriola turned the best choice to information the groups to the WTTC, which additionally serves as a qualifying event for the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris.
Toriola's identify is synonymous with Nigerian and African desk tennis, having received quite a few African titles and featured in seven Olympic Video games.
On the Busan 2024 WTTC, the Nigerian males's workforce has been drawn in group 8 towards Japan, Chinese language Taipei, the Czech Republic and Madagascar.
There are eight teams of 5 nations, every aiming to advance to the knockout rounds.
Egypt, the African champions, will compete with Portugal, Romania, Iran and Thailand, whereas Algeria will face France, Australia, Denmark and Austria.
Within the girls's class, the Nigerian workforce will play towards Germany, Slovakia, Poland and Mexico, whereas the Egyptian girls will face the European groups – France, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Croatia – in Group 8.
The Algerian girls face the large job of competing of their group towards Chinese language Taipei, the US, Thailand and Chile. The South African girls's workforce will tackle Japan, Brazil, Luxembourg and Iran in Group 2 of the ladies's occasion.
China, the defending WTTC champions, occupy the top-seeded positions in each the boys's and girls's workforce occasions because the nation's girls have been positioned in Group 1 together with Hungary, India, Spain and Uzbekistan.
Every group performs in a round-robin format, with every workforce taking part in the opposite 4 groups of their group. After the round-robin stage, the highest three groups from every group will advance to the knockout stage. The highest eight of the event will robotically obtain tickets to the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games.
The Nigerian delegation might be hoping for higher performances and an opportunity to clinch the Olympic tickets for each males's and girls's occasions. In 2023, Nigeria missed out on the continent's solely ticket to the Video games after dropping in each gender classes to Egypt on the African Championships in Tunis.
