ALL focus is now on Egypt, which has supplanted Nigeria as Africa's representative at this year's World Team Cup in Linz, Austria, furthering the obvious pains that Nigeria is losing grip on continental table tennis.

At the just concluded Africa Championship in Morocco, the Egyptians gave a futuristic picture of what they have in stocks when their junior players swept all the laurels in the U-21 event. With Omar Assar and Dina Meshref dominating the game at the junior level, Nigeria's dominance in the sport is now coming to an end, with the Egyptians taking over leadership.

Nigeria's inability to make the tournament was due to the poor outing of the Segun Toriola-inspired side at the 2008 Evergrande Real Estate World Team Table Tennis Championships in Guangzhou, China. It will be recalled that Nigeria could not improve on its rating at the championship, but Egypt put up a good performance to overtake the sleeping giant in the World Team ranking.

According to the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), 24 teams from six continents will feature in the four-day tourney organised by the Austrian Table Tennis Association. The event holds from October 22 to 25, with China (Olympic champion and World Cup title holder), Korea Republic, Japan, Hong Kong (runner-up in 2007), Czech Republic, Chinese Taipei, Germany (Olympic silver medallist), Austria (semi-finalist last time), Egypt, Brazil, Canada and Australia in the men's event.

In the women's teams, China (Olympic champion and World Cup title holder), Singapore (Olympic silver medallist), Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary (semi-finalist last time), Austria, the Netherlands, Romania, the United States, Australia, Venezuela and Egypt will jostle for honours.

The championship is one of ITTF's major highlights this year, featuring 12 top male and female teams competing for glory as well as for the $300,000 prize money. The teams were selected based on their performances at the 2008 Evergrande Real Estate World Team Table Tennis Championships held in China.

The top seven, including the host, Austria, plus the best from the above mentioned continents will participate in the event.