The WTT Series is the highest series of table tennis tournaments recognised by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). One of the competitions in the series is the 2024 WTT Contender Lagos, which will be held from June 19 to June 23 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

The 2024 WTT Contender Lagos is the second edition of the WTT Contender Series to be held in Lagos. Nigeria became the first sub-Saharan African country to host the tournament, and the 2023 WTT Contender Lagos marked it as one of Africa’s top table tennis hubs.

However, Nigeria’s rise to hosting one of the top table tennis tournaments in the world did not come overnight, said Mr Kweku Tandoh, who is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the African Table Tennis Federation (ATTF), stating it took over a decade for the country to reach the level of staging a WTT Series. 

According to Mr Tandoh, the journey started in 2013 with the Lagos State International Table Tennis Classes, which ran for two years before the ITTF recognised and approved the event, thus making it the ITTF Nigerian Open. This marked a significant boost in the journey to stage a WTT Series in the country.

The ITTF Nigerian Open ran for another five or six years, with the COVID-19 period being the only time the event was not held. It finally reached the WTT Series level when Lagos hosted the WTT Contender in 2023, becoming the highest-ranked event in sub-Saharan Africa.

Over 200 players around the world participated in the 2023 WTT Contender Lagos, with China’s Zhou Qihao winning the Men’s singles and Shin Yu-bin from South Korea winning the Women’s Singles.

South Korean duo of Jang Woo-Jin and Lim Jong-hoon clinched the men’s doubles title. Also, the Korean duo of Jeon Ji-hee and Shin claimed the women’s doubles title, while the Chinese duo of Xiang Peng and Liu Weishan won the mixed doubles category.

Meanwhile, less than 100 players will participate in this year’s tournament, and the low number is attributed to the Paris Olympic Games starting in France on July 26. Players are in camps ahead of the Games, and some are taking precautionary measures to avoid injuries.

Commonwealth Games gold medalist Sharath Kamal Achanta and Brazil’s Hugo Calderano, who recently won the WTT Star Contender title and the WTT Series singles at the WTT Star Contender Ljubljana in Slovenia on Sunday, are in contention for the WTT Contender Lagos. 

Men’s world number 14 Dimitrij Ovtcharov from Germany and world number 27 Lim Jonghoon from South Korea are in the lineup. In the women’s category, Shin would be hoping to defend her title, world number 40 Manika Batra from India and world number 41 Sreeja Akula from India also are in contention.