by Olalekan Okusan, ITTF Member Relations, Media Officer

Tunisia is the first country in the continent to stage a World Table Tennis tournaments; the man behind the initiatives is Lotfi Guerfel, President of Tunisia Table Tennis Federation.

“I am very happy for Tunisia and for Africa, we have organised many successful events as we have raised the level of organisation especially in this pandemic situation, I thank WTT for their trust.

We expect the participation of top players as the event precedes the World Championships to be held in Houston. We are working hard to have a successful event.

We started to plan all requirements one month ago, the team is ready to welcome the world.

The most important impact is to gain the trust of our sponsors and to show them that they can build a stronger and more important partnership with our sport. It is also a good opportunity to test our capacity to organise such a great event especially as Tunisia is the host of the World Youth Championship in 2022.

Also hosting the tournament has given us the opportunity to have star players from all over the world which will help the popularity of the sport as well.

Organising such great events successfully will guide other African countries to do the same, and I hope after this pandemic situation we will see more events organised in Africa. I hope and I expect to have a successful event with a positive response so that we can continue to organise WTT Contender events annually.”