Top juniors for first Daniel Ford Invitational National Table Tennis Championships

Table tennis

The top 64 players (boys and girls) in the U-15 and U-19 categories will compete at the First Daniel Ford International Elite Youth Invitational National Table Tennis Championships, which will hold from December 21 to 22 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos, Nigeria.

The tournament is sponsored by UK-based property firm, Daniel Ford International and organised by the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) with the aim of unearthing talents, as well as contributing to the growth of table tennis in the country.

According to the founder and CEO of Daniel Ford International, Yemi Edun, the decision to sponsor the tournament was borne out of his passion for the sport, having grown up in the Surulere area of Lagos, which is considered as the sports capital of Nigeria.

“Table tennis was widely played at homes and on the streets growing up, but I also lived in Surulere, which was and still is, to some extent, the sports capital of Nigeria.

“In fact, the National Stadium located in Surulere is also known as Sports City and living in this neighbourhood made me acutely aware of all things sport, including table tennis. Aside from that, I grew up during a period when table tennis legends like Atanda Musa were routinely featured on the front pages of national newspapers,” he said.

Apart from the mouth-watering prize money, boarding and feeding of all invited players and officials will be bankrolled by the sponsors. The tournament will be played in a round robin format with the 16 (boys and girls each) in U-15 and 16 (boys and girls each) in U-19 would be drawn into a group of four with the top two in each group advancing to the knockout stage of the tournament.

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