ITTF Nigeria Open: Nigeria’s Quadri, Oshonaike Join World Stars As Top Seeds

By Rilwan Musa Gawu -


The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) have confirmed Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri alongside Portugal’s Jieni Shao as the number one seeds in the men and women singles of the 2017 ITTF Challenge Nigeria Open ‘Lagos 2017
The official website of the Federation disclosed the piece of information on Sunday and 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.
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 fifth 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 (Nigerian-born Congo Brazaville) 
Alessandro Baciocchi (Italy, 14th), India’s Sarthak Gandhi (India, 15th),  Kazeem Makanjuola (Nigeria 16th).

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