ITTF African YOG Qualifying Tournament: Solanke, Oribamise seeded as tournament serves off

Nigeria’s representatives in the ITTF African Youth Olympic Qualifying Tournament, Azeez Solanke and Tosin Esther Oribamise have been seeded number two respectively in the boys and girls event of the competition which serves off today at the Sports Palace in El-Mensah, Tunis12 countries are competing for the four continental slots at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) holding in Argentina.
Egypt’s duo of Youssef Abdel-Aziz and Marwa Alhodaby are the number seeds in the boys and girls respectively.
Solanke has been drawn in group two alongside – Algeria’s Abdelbasset Chaichi, Libya’s Habeb Alajaebi and Ethiopia’s Kalab Bereba in the boys cadre, while Oribamise will battle Tunisia’s Garci Fadwa, Ethiopia’s Tamiru Feven Kinfu and Sierra Leone’s Zainab Sesay.


A confident Oribamise told NationSport that she would use the tournament to prove a point after missing the ITTF African Junior Championships. “I think we just justify our coming to Tunisia particularly when the country failed to make fund available for us to be part of the 2017 ITTF African Junior Championships. But the President of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), Wahid Oshodi in his magnanimity decided to facilitate our participation in the qualifiers, so we are here for business which is to pick a slot to the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Argentina next year,” a determined Oribamise said.


In the draw conducted on Saturday April 15 by the tournament referee, Tunisia’s Bechir Metoui, the boys have been drawn into three groups of four players with the top players in group one and two getting a bye to the semifinal stage, while the top player in group three and second placed players in the groups will be drawn for a knockout matches to decide the players that will battle against the top two players in the semifinal round.


All the round robin matches will be played on Sunday April 16 while the semifinal matches hold on Monday April 17 with the finalists in the boys and girls event qualifying automatically for the Youth Olympic Games.