Africa’s representatives at the 2017 ITTF World Cup, Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri and Egypt’s Omar Assar will today know their group opponents in the $150,000 prize money.
The draw for the three-day tournament holds today at the Country Hall in Liège ahead of the kick off tomorrow.
Quadri is seeded 14while Assar is listed 11th on the seeding list. There are possibilities that Quadri and Assar may be drawn in same group based on the format of tournament.
Being the first time Africa will be presenting two players for the competition, Quadri and Assar will be hoping to set new records at the tournament as Quadri remains the only African to have played in the quarterfinal of the 38-year-old tournament.
Among the 20 players that will contest at the World Cup comprise the current World Champion, while 17 players qualified through their respective Continental Cups. The remaining two players include host and a wildcard entry.
According to the format of the World Cup, the tournament consists of two stages. In the first stage, the players seeded nine to 20 (12 players) are drawn into four equal groups of three players, with all members of a group playing each other.
Players seeded 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th head each group A, B, C and D respectively, while players seeded 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th are drawn randomly into the second position of each preliminary group. The remaining players seeded 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th are drawn randomly into the third and last position in each preliminary group.
The top two finishers of each preliminary group shall join the top eight seeded players in the second stage of the competition. The stage two is on knockout basis.
The 2017 World Cup is the 38th edition and is the 4th edition that Belgium will host the championships while the oldest competitor is Germany’s Timo Boll, who is 36 years old. The youngest is United States’ Kanak Jha, who is 17, a difference of 19 years and there are no defensive or penhold players in this year’s edition of the championship.