National Table Tennis championship begins today

KARACHI: The National Table Tennis championship, carrying 150 players, will explode into action at Bahawalpur on Friday (today).
The draws were scheduled to be held late Thursday.
An official of the Pakistan Table Tennis Federationn (PTTF) told ‘The News’ from Bahawalpur that in the competitions, which would conclude on January 28, seven events of both men’s and women’s would be held.
WAPDA will defend the men’s team event title, while Habib Bank Limited (HBL) will defend the women’s team event crown.
Asim Qureshi of WAPDA will defend the men’s singles title, while Shabnam Bilal of HBL will defend the women’s singles crown.
Other teams which will be participating in the six-day competitions are: Sindh, Balochistan, KP, Punjab, Islamabad, Army, Railways, Higher Education Commission (HEC), OGDCL, National Highway Authority (NHA) and Gold Bridge Media.
The official said that new rankings for the Masters Cup, which would be held in Karachi from February 14-17, would also be decided. As many as 32 top-ranked men and 16 leading women would feature in the Masters Cup.
At the sidelines of the Masters Cup, the general council meeting of the PTTF will be held in which the house will discuss PTTF’s chief SM Sibtain’s continuing as president till the tenure expires in December 2018.
Dr Imran Ali Shah agreed in the last general body meeting here in the port city that he would act as the PTTF president.
But he withdrew due to his engagement in a medical course in London.
The official said that the meeting would also take decisions about holding the Masters Cup in March in Peshawar and in April in Faisalabad.
SM Sibtain-led PTTF is recognised by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).
Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is also likely to endorse this body when it submits its order regarding the legality of five federations having parallel bodies before the Lahore High Court (LHC) in the next few days.