Namibia played off the table in Botswana 

The recent ITTF Africa Youth Table Tennis Championships in Gaborone, Botswana, highlighted the gap Namibia has to bridge compared to rival nations.

The championships were for under-19s (juniors) and under-15s (cadets) and allowed for team events, singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Namibia entered athletes in the under-15 category only and for all events, which were dominated by Egypt, Tunisia and Uganda.

Both of Namibia’s girls’ and boys’ teams reached the top six (no play-offs for fifth and sixth places), with Cadence Farmer making it to the last 16 stage in the girls’ singles.

In the doubles section, Namibia found the going even tougher and failed to progress to the quarter finals.

“We anticipated a very high standard of competition, particularly from northern and eastern African countries,” the Namibia Table Tennis Association (NTTA) said in its post-tournament brief.

“Our expectation from our young team with no international experience was a top-eight finish in the team events, top eight in the doubles events, and top 16 in the singles events.”

The Namibian girls’ team consisted of Farmer, Lian Gebauer, Karolina Shigwedha and Justina Namupolo.

The boys’ equivalent had Kamrouz Ghayouri, Caden Bosman, Kevin Zhang and Agape Chicalu.

“The championships highlighted a significant gap in playing level of Namibia versus the top six teams in Africa.

“However, Namibia was very competitive against teams from southern Africa, including South Africa and Botswana,” the NNTA observed.

“Our young stars played bravely and recorded wins against southern African teams, and even took sets against the powerhouses of the North and East.“The NTTA management acknowledges that our teams need to work harder to become more competitive, but is satisfied with their performances, even though not all objectives were met,” noted the national table tennis body.

“We are confident that our teams will be a strong contender and will return with medals from the under-15 Southern Africa Regional Championships in the first week of December.