Stories By Lekan Olaseinde and Gbenga Jolaosho Abuja
Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri alongside Portugal’s Jieni Shao have been seeded as the number one seeds in the men singles of the 2017 ITTF Challenge Nigeria Open Lagos 2017 by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) According to the website of the Federation monitored by our correspondent last night revealed that Quadri’s closest challenger, Egypt’s Omar Assar is the number two seed and rated 38 in the world nine places behind Nigeria’s Quadri. In the female category, Nigeria’s 2016 Olympics representative, Funke Oshinaike, is the only Nigerian woman that made the cut in the seeding list for the Women’s Singles. Qatar’s Li Ping who is the 2009 Mixed Doubles world champions was declared the number three seed, with Finland’s Benedek Olah is the fourth on ITTF’s seeding list while France’s Antoine Hachard is fi fth in the list. Last year (2016) Belgium Open champion, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran is sixth on the seeding list for the men’s events. Debutant and former African champion, Ahmed Saleh from Egypt is the seventh seed while India’s southpaw, Sanil Shetty is eighth. Others in the seeding list include: Gavin Rumgay (Scotland, ninth); Romania’s duo of Rares Sipos, Alexandru Cazacu (Romania, 10th and 11th), Ojo Onaolapo (Nigeria, 12th), Saheed Idowu (Nigerianborn Congo Brazaville) Alessandro Baciocchi (Italy, 14th), India’s Sarthak Gandhi (India, 15th), Kazeem Makanjuola (Nigeria 16th). In the women’s seeding, Hungary’s Szandra Pergel is the second on the list behind Shao, while African women champion, Egypt’s Dina Meshref is rated third. Others are: Olga Kulikova (Russia, fourth), Bernadett Balint (Hungary, fi fth), Nigeria’s Olufunke Oshonaike (Nigeria, sixth). Ukraine’s Ganna Farladanska and India’s Krittwika Roy make up the list in seventh and eighth places. Th e tournament will serves off in the second week of next month
