Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna booked his place in the World Table Tennis WTT finals to be held in Doha next year.

Aruna was named as the 15th qualifier in the 16-player tournament on Friday by WTT, leaving only one slot for grabs.

The competition which will be held between January 3 – 5, will see the best 16 men’s players in the world battle for a share of $340,000 prize money at stake, with the winner going home with $40,000.

Aruna who is the only African to feature in the competition will also be making his third appearance after featuring at the maiden edition in Singapore in 2021 and at last year’s edition in China.

At the maiden edition of the competition in 2021, Aruna qualified for the quarter-final, where he was defeated by Brazil’s Hugo Calderano. He had earlier defeated China’s Liang Jingkun who was ranked eighth in the world 3-1 in the Round of 16.

In the 2022 edition, the African No. 1 player failed to make it out of the Round of 16, losing 3-1 to Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yun-Ju.

The competition will also see Aruna garner enough points to boost his qualification for the singles event of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Players that have already qualified for the tournament include Fan Zhendong (China), Wang Chuqin (China), Ma Long (China), Hugo Calderano (Brazil), Liang Jingkun (China), Lin Yun-Yu (Chinese Taipei), Felix Lebrun (France), Lin Gaoyuan (China), Jang Woojin (South Korea), Lin Shidong (China), Tomokazu Harimoto (Japan), Dimitrij Ovtcharov (Germany), Dang Qiu (Germany) and Darko Jorgic (Slovenia).