"The stars are aglow in the heavens, but only the wise understand/ That, shining at night in Tunisia, they guide you through the desert sand." As Ella Fitzgerald suggested so sublimely on the Dizzy Gillespie tune "A Night in Tunisia," the enchanting north African land requires the wisdom of experience to navigate. Such was the case at the 2020 ITTF-Africa Top 16 Cup, a qualifier for the women's and men's Word Cup championships this October. There in Tunis, the stars of Africa were indeed aglow. For those magi relying on celestial navigation to negotiate their way through the vast expanses, there could be no better lodestar than Dina Meshref of Egypt. The top-ranked player on the African continent, she has been an ever-fixed mark at the continental cup, entering this year's proceedings with six straight wins and seven overall. In the final, she met second-seeded Offiong Edem of Nigeria. With a (11-2, 11-8, 8-11, 11-5, 11-6) scoreline, Meshref padded her already superlative stats with her seventh successive success. With the title comes a ticket to Bangkok for the Women's World Cup this October 23-25. "From the start of the competition, I just stayed focused, played my game and did not think about how many times I had won in the past," said a victorious Meshref. "I must commend Edem because she is an experienced player who played extremely well. She changed tactics time and again which made it sometimes difficult to play against her." Adding her first continental cup from 2011, her eight championships set a high bar. No other African woman has won more than two, a fact surely not lost on her 12-year-old teammate and rival Hana Goda, the reigning Egyptian national champion. What the men's firmament lacked in terms of a single, overpoweringly brilliant star, it made up for with parity. While Nigeria's Quadri Aruna was the top seed, he and his national team have never suffered for a lack of competition from Egypt. Aruna entered the tournament sharing the men's record for most continental cup wins with Egypt's El-Sayed Lashin, each with four. After a nail-biting semifinal with another Egyptian, in which Aruna edged Omar Assar 12-10 in the deciding seventh game, he faced yet another rival from nigh the Nile in the final. The finalist flying the Egyptian flag was Ahmed Ali Saleh, a veteran and winner of three continental cups in three separate decades, the first in 1997. The Egyptian national team coach, Magdy Ashour, could not help but point out the ineluctable redistribution of Saleh's assets. "Even when he does not train that much, he still has something special to offer," said Ashour. "He does not do much physical exercise as he only warms up during major tournaments. Everything he does on the table comes from his head." Perhaps Ashour was indirectly trying to get into Saleh's head, motivating him to support his vaunted mental game with some good old footwork drills. In any case, a matchup with the very physical Quadri Aruna is not taken lightly by any of the world's top players. Would Aruna claim a record fifth men's title all to himself, or double the number of Egyptians with whom he shares the current record? As with his semifinal match, it would all be decided in the seventh game. This time, Aruna could not produce the magic shots to send his fans into a frenzy. While Saleh is a step slower at 40, his advantage in experience proved decisive down the stretch. Running away with the game that counted, 11-3 in the seventh, Saleh joined his countryman Lashin and Aruna with a record fourth men's championship. He will also join his fellow continental representatives at the Men's World Cup this October 16-18 in Düsseldorf. "I am very happy because I could not imagine that I would beat Aruna in this tournament," said a celebratory Saleh. "All I did was to focus from the first point to the end. I really don’t want to quit at 40 as I want to play until my body cannot do it anymore. I love table tennis and I will continue." With their record-setting performances, Egypt's Dina Meshref and Ahmed Ali Saleh set the standard for consistent excellence. While their brilliance has proven blinding to their rivals, there will be those for whose paths it provides illumination. Only the wise.

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