By Monica Iheakam
Nigeria was on Tuesday afternoon handed a tough draw for the 2024 ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championship finals.
The draws held at Busan e-sports Arena, Korea Republic had over 3.5 million viewers tuned in to watch proceedings as the countries were paired for the competition billed for February 16-25, 2024.
In the Women’s draw, Nigeria is pitted in Group 3 against Germany, Slovak Republic, Poland and Mexico.
For the men teams’ draws, Nigeria landed in Group 5 alongside Japan, Chinese Taipei, Czech and Madagascar.
The tournament also serves as qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with the top eight teams in the men and women picking their slots in the team event of the Olympic Games in France.
Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Madagascar are Africa’s representatives in the men’s event while Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Mauritius will fly the continent’s flag in the women’s category.
Already, Egypt has picked the continent’s sole ticket in the team events (men and women) and this will afford Nigeria and other African teams to join the North African nation in the team event of the Olympic Games.
Both the Men’s and Women’s Teams events will see eight groups of five teams looking to advance to the knockout rounds.
Each match is decided by best of five singles matches, with individual matches being best of five games.