For his second-round finish at the 2024 ITTF World Cups in Macao, Omar Assar has risen to 14th in the 2024 Week 17 of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) due to be released on Tuesday, April 23.
The three-time African Games champion became the only African that progressed to the second round in the men’s singles after beating Iran’s Nosham Alamiyan and Sweden’s Truls Moregard to top Group 16.
The Egyptian has been in fine form since his 4-3 triumph over Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna at the 13th African Games in Ghana and his performance has rubbed positively on his ranking fortunes as he broke into the top 16 after Ghana’s win.
Following a remarkable performance in the group stage at the ITTF World Cup, Assar was set up against Japan’s Shunsuke Togami and in a hard-fought match, it was the Japanese that triumphed with as a 4-2 (11-7, 12-14, 11-8, 10-12, 11-5, 11-3) win to stop the unbeaten run of the 2023 African Cup champion.
From 16th spot in Week 17, Assar rose to 14th as the best rated African in the world and considered as his career best ranking. He will be heading to next month’s African Cup in Kigali, Rwanda, where he aims to defend his title against some of the finest players in the continent.
Meanwhile, Aruna who managed a 4-0 victory over Daniel Gonzalez of Puerto Rico and later lost 1-3 to Portugal’s Marcos Freitas to exit in the first round of the ITTF World Cups, remained static in 19th place in the world rating.
Despite withdrawing from the ITTF World Cups, Egypt’s Dina Meshref maintained his status as the best ranked African in the world rated 24th while her compatriot – Hana Goda is second in the continent ranked 30th in the world.
