The world table tennis ruling body International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has named Egyptian and South African officials for the forthcoming Africa Cup taking place in Lagos from May 26 to 28.

Egypt’s Mohamed El-Dawlatly is the competition manager while Africa’s most experienced female referee Genevieve Lentz of South Africa will handle proceedings at the continental elite tournament.

El-Dawlatly has been part of the ITTF for years while he has been part of the technical team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan; he has also been part of several international competitions across the globe. He was the competition manager of the Nigeria Open in 2018 while his experience will come to the fore in Lagos when the best players in Africa converge in Nigeria’s commercial nerve center Lagos for the elite tournament which serves as qualifiers for the WTT Cup Finals.

Like El-Dawlatly, Lentz was part of the ITTF referee team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games while she was the referee at the last World University Games in Italy and she will be heading to Lagos as an experienced official.

According to the tournament’s prospectus, each country is expected to nominate two players each in men’s and women’s events while the host – Nigeria will present four men and four women. Egypt as the men and women defending champions will have three men and three women for the event.

The events shall be played in a round-robin format with five players drawn in each group with the top two players in each group advancing to the second stage of the tournament.

The allotment of the players in groups will take place according to the latest African ranking list of May 2022.