Aruna Quadri leads Team Nigeria to ITTF Team World Cup

Aruna Quadri leads Team Nigeria to ITTF Team World Cup

By Okechukwu Onwuka

Aruna Quadri‘s unbeaten run at the ITTF World Tour tagged Bulgaria Open came to a glorious end yesterday as the Nigeria Open champion fell to China’s Zhao Zihao 4-1 in the men’s singles semifinal.

Nine years after featuring in the bi-annual ITTF Team World Cup, Nigeria will be making a return to the prestigious tournament as Aruna Quadri leads a five-man Team Nigeria to the 2019 edition holding in Tokyo, Japan on November 6 to 10.

Nigeria’s last appearance in the tournament was in 2010 in United Arab Emirates (UAE) where the team became the first African team to win the Intercontinental Cup and based on their triumph at the 2018 African Championship in Mauritius, the team qualified as Africa’s men representative at the Tokyo tournament which also serves as test event for Olympic Games.

In the confirmed list of players made available to newsmen, Quadri who is at present in Bremen competing for a place in the main draw of the ITTF World Tour tagged German Open, will be among the top rated players leading their country campaign to the championship. Also in the Team Nigeria list are Segun Toriola, Bode Abiodun, Olajide Omotayo and Azeez Solanke.

Egypt as the African women champion will join Nigeria at the Tokyo tournament and the Egyptian side will be led by African women singles champion – Dina Meshref who recently moved to German Bundesliga to sharpen her skills against some of the world best ahead of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

According to ITTF, the tournament features teams of the standard of Olympic Games with China, Germany and host – Japan considered as favourites.