ITTF has confirmed Nigeria as one of the countries expected to participate in this year’s World Cup.

Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri will fly Africa’s flag in the men’s World Cup holding in Dusseldorf, Germany on October 24 to 26.

Quadri’s qualification was secured during the maiden African Top 16 Cup held in Lagos and the Nigerian will be making his second appearance at the tournament after his debut during the 2009 edi­tion in Moscow, Russia.

In the women’s World Cup, Egypt’s Dina Me­shref will represent the continent in Linz, Austria on October 17 to 19.

According to the world table tennis ruling body, 20 women and 20 men will compete at the two events holding next month.

The players qualified for the prestigious World Cup events through their respective Continental Cups, which means only the best of the best can compete.

Other players that earn automatic qualifica­tion to play in the 2014 World Cup’s were the current World Champions, Jike Zhang of China and Xiaoxia Li of China while the two lucky players that received a wildcard into the events are Greece’s Panagiotis Gionis and Ro­mania’s Elizabeta Samara.

The 2014 Men’s World Cup promises to be one of the best in recent

Memory, with all the stars of international table tennis competing. One of those stars include, Olym­pic bronze medalist, Ger­many’s Dimitrij Ovtcha­rov, who will be aiming to win his first Men’s World Cup in front of his home crowd in Dusseldorf:

“Last year I was really close to winning the title. Since last year I have been training hard, and with the support of the local crowd in the city I am living in, I think I can win my first ever World Title event,” the German said.

Ovtcharov will be the local’s favorite to win the Men’s World Cup, as will Austrian Liu Jia in the Women’s World Cup. Liu qualified by sensationally winning the DHS Europe Cup earlier, and will be keen to take that strong form to Linz where she hopes to win a medal.

Besides Nigeria’s Quadri, other players competing in the men’s World Cup are China’s Jike Zhang, Greece’s Pan­agiotis GIONIS, Portugal’s Marcos FREITAS, Den­mark’s Michael MAZE, Germany’s Dimitrij OVTCHAROV, France’s Adrien MATTENET, Rus­sia’s Alexander SHIBAEV, Germany’s Timo BOLL, China’s MA Long, Japan’s MIZUTANI

Jun, Chinese Taipei’s CHEN Chien-An, Korea’s KIM Minseok, India’s Sharath Kamal ACHAN­TA, Chinese Taipei’s CHUANG Chih-Yuan, Japan’s MATSUDAIRA Kenta and Hong Kong’s TANG Peng.

Others are Australia’s William HENZELL, Bra­zil’s Cazuo MATSUMO­TO and 13-year-old United States’ Kanak JHA.