22 Jun 2021

Botswana Table Tennis Association (BTTA) will host Phoenix Assurance Invitational tournament for top 16 ranked players at the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources on July 3.

In an interview with BOPA on Monday, BTTA vice president - technical, Kabo Mosarwe said they aimed to move from amateur to semi-professional hence more focus was on top 16 ranked players’ tournaments.

Adherence to COVID-19 health restrictions, he said, was the other reason why they limited the number of players partaking in tournaments.

Mosarwe highlighted that top 16 ranked players’ tournament was structured into four groups and the loser from each group would be dropped and invited to partake in preliminaries to be played at Botswana National Youth Commission training halls on July 4

“Four players who qualified at the preliminaries would then be promoted to top 16,” he said.

“The target number of players for preliminaries is 50 and they will play at different times.”

Mosarwe said in an effort to adhere to COVID-19 health protocols, the men would play first in the morning until noon and the women would follow until late afternoon. “When the men finish playing, they would be expected to leave the venue,” he added.

The registration fee for invitational tournament is P150 under preliminary, senior players’ registration fee is P100, P50 for under 18 and P20 for under 15 players.

For invitational tournament, Mosarwe indicated that the champions would walk away with P3 000, runner-ups P1 500 while semi-finalists would each get P750.

Pertaining to international games, he said, men and women national teams would compete in Senior African championships to be held Morocco in September and India in October respectively.

He said both competitions would be qualifiers for Commonwealth Games, which would be hosted by Birmingham next year.

Mosarwe said if funds permit, they wished to send a team of eight players, four women and four men, to both competitions.

He said BTTA would also compete in Junior African Championships to be held in Madagascar, adding that Botswana would in December hosts Region 5 Games. ENDS