Fathmath Dheema Ali is participating in the Table Tennis World Junior Championship held in Portugal next month. For her double’s pairs in this tournament, a Nigerian and a Czech has been selected.

Dheema will participate in the under 15 category at the World Junior Championship. In this age group’s women’s doubles, Dheema’s pair will be Sukurat Aiyelbegan from Nigeria. She is Nigeria’s current most promising young talent. In mixed doubles, Dheema’s partner will be Martin Sip from Czech Republic.

Dheema who is the first person in Maldives to qualify for a Table Tennis World Championship is currently undergoing physical training done specifically for the championship. She is doing this in former runner Naseer Ismail’s Naseer Sports Academy.

The tournament will be played from Dec 2 to Dec 8. Dheema has qualified for this championship thanks to her rankings in the world rankings system. She is ranked 18^th in the world’s under 15 category. Last month she was in 20^th place. In April’s ranking, she was even at 8^th place and at the same time, she was 41^st place in the world’s under 17 category.

Dheema had participated in the most recent South Asian Games and Indian Ocean Island Games and earned medals in both competitions. She had also participated in the World Contender Championship held in Oman’s Muscat last month and advanced up to the quarterfinals in the under 15 category. She did so by defeating players from Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

She also took part in the World Contender Championship held in Tunisia in September. World Contender Championships are eligible for the top 30 players in their respective age categories.