by Olalekan Okusan, the ITTF-Africa Press Officer

Success but Omar Assar is ambitious and sees the future in terms of continental unity.

“I feel proud to have reached the top 20 in the world and like I said earlier this year that that was my first goal. The World Cup in Liège was very special for me as I qualified as the first African to make through the world ranking. However, I was injured two weeks before the competition but my physical strength was fine and I was ready to make a good tournament in Belgium.

I was not surprised with my performance and honestly I am not satisfied with my performance in Liège. I had bigger dreams and expectations for myself and I am sure I am going to get a medal one day.

Quadri Aruna and myself are very active in trying to do well in every competition to improve our world ranking and I believe we should have done a better job in Liège. Also, I have learned a lot from Liège; the most important part that I need to improve is the mental part and the level of focus stability during every match.

I am not happy or satisfied about my match against Ma Long and I believe I could have played much better. Now I am analysing the match to fix my problems.

The gap between us and the top 10 players is smaller right now but we need to work in the small details, as well as work as a team in Africa because as I see now that everyone is working individually. I would like to urge the African Table Tennis Federation to help us to get better.”