Although very little was heard from table tennis in 2019 compared to last year when Kenya hosted the 16th Africa Championships, the sport was bubbling with activities at home and in the region.
The pride of place goes to Brian Mutua and Jenny Compell.
Mutua overcame heavy odds to become the singles Eastern Africa Region champion in the inaugural International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Africa Eastern Region Singles Cup finals held at the Pope Paul Memorial Centre in Kampala early this month.
Compell, 11, a pupil at Moi Air Base Primary School was the youngest player at the 2019 Africa Games in Rabat, Morocco, and was featured prominently in the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Channel TV which described her as “the future of Kenyan table tennis.”
Only five years after picking up the sport, this table tennis prodigy competed in the African Games and gave a good account of herself at the highest level of continental competition. Her dream is to bring an Olympic Gold to Kenya in the near future.
At home, scores of young players converged on St Monica’s Girls School in Kitale for the 10-days (December 8-19) schools holiday camp under the motto “Tucheze tebo” for budding players in a well-structured campaign to spread the game beyond Nairobi.
This was a follow-up from October’s Japan Cultural Day held at the National Museum with the theme “Food Culture and Sports” and hosted by Japanese Embassy in Nairobi where Compell impressed many, including Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed.
The Kampala tournament, which brought together players from Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania, was hosted by Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA) in collaboration with Africa Eastern Region with support from the ITTF.
Some 11 men and 12 women started the campaign from the group stages with six of them advancing to the knock-out stage of the two-day championship.
Right from the singles group stages, Mutua displayed class and resilience and remained unbeaten in preliminaries before meeting Uganda’s Eddy Omongole in the thrilling final where he won a convincing 4-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-5, 11-9) to earn a ticket for next year’s Africa Championships-cum-Tokyo Olympics qualifier in Tunis.
In the women’s category, Ethiopia’s Marta Meshesha was tested in the group stage by Uganda’s Ludia Natunga in an encounter that ended in favour of the experienced Ethiopian at 3-2 (11-2, 9-11, 9-11, 11-2, 12-10).
From there, Meshesha sailed to the final after beating Uganda’s Amina Lukaya 4-1 (11-7, 8-11, 11-4, 12-10, 11-3) in the semi-final where she battled Tanzania’s Neema Mwaisyula.
Without much effort, she quickly dismissed her Tanzanian opponent 4-0 (11-7, 11-1, 11-9, and 11-9) to claim the women’s singles title.
Mutua and Meshesha will be the Eastern Africa Region representatives in the ITTF Africa Cup.
They will be facing the Western Africa region champions’ duo of Nigeria’s Fatimo Bello and Cote d’Ivoire’s Oba Kitizo who are West Africa champions at the Africa Cup in Tunisia.
“This is the first time that Uganda hosted the regional event and there is room for improvement in organizing such events in future. We look forward to seeing improvement, not just in Uganda, but the whole region so that our level of organization and standards can be at par with the rest of the Africa and the world,” said the Kenya Table Tennis Federation (KTTF) President Andrew Mudibo.
“We look forward to future events being held across the region as this is what will improve the performance of our players in major continental and international events,” Mudibo said.
