Organisers have had confirmation of players from twelve nations at the weekend, but further players from China, Russia, Portugal, Ukraine, Finland, Togo and Benin Republic have been accepted to the tournament, which will serve off with qualifiers for home players on Thursday at Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Nigeria's financial capital.

Players such as China's Li Yang and Shao Jieni and the Russian duo of Sergey Bratchenko and Zora Novikova have been confirmed for the groundbreaking tournament in Lagos.

Competition manager John Peters said: "We are overwhelmed with the quality of entries and for us, it is good that we are staging the tournament for the first time and a lot of players have been showing interest to be part of it.

"We are excited with this development and we are hoping that this will be the dawn of a new thing in table tennis in Nigeria."

The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and Africa Table Tennis Federation (ATTF) approved tournament will allow players to gain vital ranking points as well as having the chance to battle it out for the highest prize pot in African table tennis, with men's and women's singles champions to be awarded $5,000 (£3,200/€3,700) and $4,000 (£2,600/€3,000) respectively, whilst players that reach the final 16 will also earn a cash prize.

ATTF chief Khaled El-Salhy praised the Nigerian Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) for staging the tournament, and opened the door on the possibility of Nigeria hosting a continental cup tournament next year should the Lagos International Classic tournament become a success. 

Sergey Bratchenko of Russia is one of the names confirmed for the Lagos International Classic this month

"I want to commend the NTTF board for their ingenuity and I am very happy that Nigeria with its remarkable traditional weight in sports and specially table tennis can agree to organise the tournament," he said.

"I am hoping for a resounding success and one of my missions is to assess the organisation, as well as facilities.

"We also want to use this event as a test for ITTF/ATTF title event in the near future."

"ITTF/ATTF is looking to organise a brand new event next year tagged '2014 ITTF-Africa Top 16 Cup,' which should be in the second half of next yearas qualification for ITTF World Cups next year, and we believe it will be good to start this competition in Nigeria."

"I am hoping for a successful 2013, as well as envisaging that the Lagos International Classics will be among the ITTF World Tour Calendar in 2014 and this is to prove to ITTF that Africa could host sanctioned events in a professional way," he added.

Preliminary rounds for the tournament will get underway this Thursday (August 22), whilst the main draw will being next Monday (August 26).

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