No fewer than 115 players from 14 countries on Wednesday served-off the 4th edition of the annual International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Premier Lotto, tagged “Nigeria Open.’’
The competition is holding at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Indoor Sports Hall of the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos.
The countries are Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Hungary, Egypt, Finland, Slovakia, Romania, Mexico, Ghana, Congo Brazzavillie, Morocco, Tunisia and Cameroun.
The competition served-off with preliminary matches for unseeded players, and no fewer than 55 players will be aiming for the 16 slots into the main draw of the men’s singles.
In the women’s singles, 38 players will jostle for the eight slots available into the main draws of the competition while 22 players are seeded.
Nigeria is being represented by 76 players comprising 47 male and 29 female.
Team Nigeria is led by veteran players Segun Toriola, Quadri Aruna, Funke Oshonaike and Janet Offiong.
In the maiden edition in 2013, Aruna made it to the semi-final while in 2014 and 2015 editions, he played in the finals but lost to Egypt’s Assar Omar.
The total prize money at this year’s edition is $46,000 which is the biggest prize money in the ITTF Challenge Series in the world.