Table tennis players head to Zambia

The Namibian Table Tennis Association (NTTA) sent a six-man delegation to Zambia on Wednesday to participate in the Zone 6 games starting in Lusaka today. Rudi Saunderson, Wayne Green, Reinhardt Stanley, Darren Strauss and Captain Heiko Fleidl form the team, and Dr Yuri Vasin will accompany them as team manager. The event was supposed to take place in December last year, but organisational problems in Zambia led to a postponement. The Namibian team, who took fourth place at the last Zone 6 games in South Africa, feel well prepared and excited: “It will be tough, but we are looking forward to the challenge,” said Fleidl, adding that they want at least another fourth place. Six nations from southern Africa will compete at the three-day tournament. According to Fleidl, the South Africans are the hot favourites as they are placed well ahead of all other participating nations in the world ranking. “South Africa currently occupies the 80th place in the world ranking. Although that might not sound extremely good, one has to understand that there are more than 200 countries that play table tennis worldwide,” explained Fleidl, who mentioned Angola as another possible title contender. Team manger Vasin added that Namibia currently holds 118th place in the world ranking. The tournament will be divided into three different events. In the team event each nation nominates three players who go head-to-head against all other countries in a round-robin format. Here the Namibian team sees its biggest chance to win a medal. Furthermore there are the single and pairs events.