09 Dec 2021

Botswana Table Tennis Association (BTTA) will host the Phoenix Assurance Regional championships from December 11-13 at Botho University, in Gaborone.

Six Southern African countries of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Lesotho, Malawi and the host, Botswana, would partake in the tournament, while a team of three from Eswatini, would attend for benchmarking purposes.

In an interview with BOPA on Wednesday, BTTA Publicity Secretary, Arthur Kgaswe said BTTA realized the need to host the championship, to bring together Southern African countries, since Region 5 games were last held in 2019.

He explained that regional tournaments were meant to grow and develop table tennis in Southern Africa.

“We have to keep having this kind of competitions, such as South African regional tournament, which was held mid-year,” he said.

Pertaining to prizes, he indicated that the senior gold medalists would each walk away with P8 000, followed by P4 000 for silver winners, semifinalists would each win P2 000 and quarterfinalists would each get P1 000.

Furthermore, he said, for Under 19, the champions would each win P2 000, second position winners, P1 000, semifinalists, P500, while quarterfinalists would each get P250.

He highlighted that Botswana Senior men national team was made up of Tirelo Tshipinare, Bakang Maloka and Tshenolo Mooketsi, the senior ladies team would be represented by Tshepiso Rebatenne, Game Kebodiwang and Constance Kuswani.

He said Under 19 team was made up of Sean Dekop and Kaone Morome.

Kgaswe explained that without South Africa in the competition, Botswana stood a good chance of winning the championship.

“In the 2019 Region 5 games, Botswana came second after South Africa,” he added.

He said not only national team players were allowed to partake in the competition, adding that there were already some individual players from different countries, who had registered for the competition. Ends