A PEEP into the list of players registered for this year’s International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour, tagged Lagos Open, shows that Portugal, Russia have joined defending champions, Egypt and seven others, as well as host, Nigeria, in the quest for honours at the five-day tournament holding next month in Lagos.

  According to the list of confirmed players by ITTF, Egypt will be led by current ITTF Africa Senior champion, Omar Assar, who is coming with 12 of his compatriots, including current African women champion, Dina Meshref.

  Also, Portugal has the trio of Diogo Silva, Andre Silva and Jieni  Shao, while Russia will be represented by Irina Ermakova.

  Iran will also be debuting at the tournament with the duo of Afshin  Noroozi and Nima Alamian coming to Lagos, while other teams like Benin, 

Cameroun, Congo DRC, Djibouti, Sierra Leone and Togo will also be part of the $46,000 prize money championship holding from March 10 to 14 at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

  Nigeria’s team, which will be led by the current ITTF star player, Aruna Quadri, also has veteran and six-time Olympian, Segun Toriola, as part of the contingent.

  For the women event, Nigeria will be represented by Germany-based Funke Oshonaike, Portugal-based Edem Offiong and winner of the maiden edition of the tournament, Cecilia Otu-Akpan.

  Over 100 players have been listed for the tournament, which is the  second challenge series in the ITTF World Tour calendar after the  Hungary Open held in January.