African Games: Five countries advance to quarter-finals

Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Madagascar have advanced to the quarter-finals of the table tennis men’s team event at the 13th African Games in Accra, Ghana.

This was disclosed in a statement by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), obtained by NAN on Wednesday.

Egypt emerged leader in group one after beating Ethiopia and Gabon 3-0, respectively to maintain their 100% record.

The statement added that Nigeria, drawn in group two alongside Congo DR and Mauritania, topped the group after a 3-0 victory over the two teams.

Algeria also defeated Angola and Guinea with 3-0 margin to progress to the quarter-final.

Tunisia defeated Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya to progress.

According to the statement, Madagascar edged Ghana and Sudan to join the league of the elite teams in the last-8.

However, second-placed teams in each group will battle for the remaining three slots in the quarter-final to determine the quarter-final pairing.

Meanwhile, In the women’s team event, Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria and Tunisia have booked their spots in the semi-finals after topping their groups.

They await the second-placed teams in the four groups to determine their semi-final pairing.

The President of African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), Khaled El-Salhy, has commended all the participating teams for the standard of play.

El-Salhy also hailed the host, Ghana, for putting up a good atmosphere for the event.

“I am so excited that we have over 19 countries in the event and we are particularly happy with what Ghana has put in place to ensure the success of the event.

“We are lucky to be the first sport to start competing at the 13th African Games and this has shown again that table tennis is fast returning to Ghana just like it was in the 1970s.

“We look forward to more exciting matches just like what we had in the finals of the singles event which is a good advertisement for table tennis to the world,” he said.