Sports Briefs
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INTERNATIONAL Table Tennis Federation, ITTF, world table tennis ruling body, has confirmed the prize money for the 2016 Lagos World Tour. According to Karl Jindrak, ITTF director of competition the Lagos Open as one of the challenge series tournaments in the ITTF calendar, the championship holds on May 18 to 22 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of the Teslim Balogun Stadium. Top players from across the world are expected to grace the five-day tournament.
As the highest prize money tournament in the challenge series of the ITTF World Tour, players will jostle for $46,000 or N13.8m this year. According to the organisers, Omar Assar, an Egyptian defending champion, will be making a return to Lagos after the disappointing defeat he suffered against Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri at the ITTF Africa Top 16 Cup in Khartoum, Sudan.
Besides, other top players from Egypt who have been part of the championship in the last three years are expected to return to Lagos in their bid to sweep the prize money. According to the event’s programme, six events are to be competed for and these include singles (men and women); doubles (men and women) as well as U-21 boys and girls.
Preliminary entry for the tournament has commenced while the final entry has been fixed for April 18 while no entries will be accepted after midnight on Monday, April 18, 2016. There are indications that top players from Europe and Asia will be gracing this year’s tournament as part of their efforts to garner world ranking points as well as make it to the end-of-the-year ITTF World Tour Finals.
According to the prospectus for the tournament, any player entering for the tournament will agree to abide by all the ITTF rules and by the rules and regulations of the organising committee.
— Mar 7, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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