After two days of action, the maiden Valuejet Para Table Tennis Open comes to an end on Saturday December 21 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.
Being the climax of the three-day championships, three finals will hold with the top three players and teams in the championship carting home trophies and prize money as their share of the N10.8m purse.
Over 165 players from six countries including host – Nigeria are competing in the tournament.
For South Africa’s Theo Cogill, the tournament has indeed set a new standard for Africa considering the quality of organisation and standard of play.
“I am not surprised with what I have seen so far in this tournament because is indeed setting the pace for Africa and the world when it comes to organising major tournament. Having featured in several tournaments within Africa, I realised that Nigeria is getting better when it comes to staging major competition. I have been to two editions of the Nigeria Open but I was surprised that despite being the maiden edition, the Valuejet Para Table Tennis Open has again showed that the continent should look up to Nigeria when it comes to organisation of major event. They are ahead of others and I hope other African countries can learn from Nigeria,” the 2018 Commonwealth semifinalist said.
The African championship silver medalist added: “I hope and believe that ITTF can consider that the Valuejet Open will be included in its calendar for 2020 so that more players across the globe come to Nigeria for the tournament.”
The championship has been put together by Sunday Odebode Foundation with technical support from the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) while Valuejet Airline bankrolled the tournament.
