Dina Meshref hopes to cement table tennis legacy at Paris Olympics

Table tennis runs deep in Dina Meshref’s family – it’s pretty much a rite of passage.

Both her parents, Dr Alaa Meshref and Shereen El Alfy, were Egyptian national champions and qualified for the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Her aunts, Nihal Meshref and Shahira El Alfy, also played, with the latter crowned African champion in 2000 – a year in which she also competed at the Sydney Olympics.

Dina’s great aunt, Ines El Darwish, was the first African Championships women’s singles winner, back in 1962.

Grandparents, cousins, siblings, uncles … the Meshrefs and their extended clan have built a table tennis dynasty of champions for over six decades, but no one has been as successful as 30-year-old Dina Meshref, who will be appearing in her fourth Olympic Games this summer in Paris.

Ranked No 25 in the world, Meshref has been a dominant force on the African continent, scooping seven gold medals at the African Games, and winning the Africa Cup an unprecedented nine times.

She was born in Montreal, where her father was doing a post-doctoral fellowship at McGill University, but moved to Cairo when she was two months old, and has resided in Egypt ever since.

Given her family history in table tennis, it seemed inevitable for Meshref to pick up a paddle. But that wasn’t necessarily the plan for her as her parents ensured whatever sport she played, it would be her choice.

“My mum started me out in tennis, not table tennis, mainly because my whole family was a table tennis family and she didn’t want to force me into it,” Meshref told The National. “I played tennis for a year and I really liked it.”

She would occasionally join her father at the table tennis hall at Al Ahly Club, where he was involved with the management of the team, and she