Focus shifts to African Junior Championships

Africa’s future stars North, South, East, and West, will from April 6 to 12 converge on Algiers for the 2016 ITTF African Junior Championships with all eyes on rivals Nigeria and Egypt.
With the outcome at the recent Egypt Open in Cairo, the battle for supremacy will come to fore when the tournament serves off in Algiers with 15 events to be competed for in seven days.
The competition will also enable teams compete for the three slots allocated to the continent at the 2016 ITTF World Junior Championship later in Pretoria, South Africa.
Egypt’s Youssef Abdel-Aziz and Nigeria’s Amadi Omeh will be the players to watch out for, as well as Algeria’s Sannah Lagsir who singled-handedly halted the dominance of Egypt at the 2015 edition in Mauritius.
Africa Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) President, Khaled El-Salhy, about 12 to 15 countries are expected, with the inclusion of Youth Under-21 events for boys and girls.
Said he: “We are expecting over 15 countries and from the way things are going, everything is well prepared by the Algeria Table Tennis Federation and I am completely satisfied with their final preparations.
“The unique thing about this tournament is that we are adding the events for Youth U-21 this year, and we will check if it suites to continue in the coming events together with U-18 and U-15 or to get such category into the African Cup and Clubs Championships.”
El-Salhy admitted that the presence of Nigeria would add vigour and glamour.
“In 2015, Nigeria was absent from the tournament in Mauritius and their presence in Algiers will surely make the tournament more competitive particularly against teams from the Northern parts of the continent.
“It will also help ATTF to select the best teams that will qualify for the World Juniors and select African teams for this year’s World Cadet Challenge.
“I know that the fight for the teams that will qualify for the World Junior Championships will be among four associations – Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria and Tunisia in the boys and girls categories.”