By Victor Kanayo
Nigeria’s table tennis star Aruna Quadri on Wednesday beat his Brazilian opponent Hugo Calderano ranked number five in the world in the ongoing Men’s singles at World Table Tennis Finals in Doha, Qatar.
Powering from two sets down, Quadri finished the match as the winner at 3-2.
While facing the South American, the African champion ranked 16 started the game slowly as the underdog losing the first two sets 11-2, 11-7, but bounced back strongly to win 11-9, 12-10, 12-10 to progress to the quarter final.
Last Eight Battle
Quadri will now face WTT’s number-one ranked player, Fan Zhendong of China on Thursday.
Zhendong also survived a scare to defeat WTT ranked number 14 player Darko Jorgic of Serbia 7-11, 11-7, 11-7, 17-19, 11-8 to win 3-2, following a nervy five-set decider.
Results of other rounds of 16 matches also played on Wednesday saw world ranked number 13 Dang Qiu of Germany stun world number nine, Lin Shindong of China 3-2 (11- 9, 11-8, 7-11, 2-11, 11-8).
Also, world number four, China’s Liang Jingkun dispatched world number six Lin Yun-Ju of Chinese Taipei 3-1 (11-6, 17-15, 3-11, 11-5) to advance to the quarter-finals.
Prize Money
The top 16 table tennis players are slugging it out in the world Table tennis tournament in Lusail, Doha, and Aruna is the only African player who qualified for the competition which served off on Wednesday, January 3, and will end on Friday, January 5, 2024.
Up to $340, 000 is at stake for grabs by the overall winner.
