Nigeria’s Male And Female Table Tennis Players Shine At Continental Competition

Nigeria’s Male And Female Table Tennis Players Shine At Continental Competition By Our Reporter Nigeria’s table tennis stars dominated the men’s and women’s team events at the 2021 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) African Championships in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The Championship comes 18 months after the last major tennis competition was staged in Africa. The city of Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, was bustling with life as the delayed 2021 ITTF African Championships kicked off on Wednesday. Nigerian tennis players Taiwo Mati, Olajide Omotayo and Azeez Solanke comfortably defeated South Africa 3-0 in the first group match and then replicated the result against Ivory Coast to put the team in a commanding position in Group One. In a particular thrilling match involving Mati and Ivory Coast’s Oba Kizito Oba, the West African champion forced the showdown to go all the way to five games after inching ahead of the Nigerian in Game three with a 2-1 lead. Mati staged a comeback and took the match 3-2. Omotayo did not have any such worries as he increased the lead for Nigeria with a convincing 3-0 win over Cedric Oba before Solanke ended the dream of a comeback by the Ivorians to complete the domination of the Nigerian trio. In the female events, Nigeria’s Offiong Edem anchored the women’s team against Kenya and Uganda. The competition provided a dream debut for Fatimo Bello and Bukky Ajayi as they seized the opportunity to record convincing wins over the competition. After a 3-0 win over the Kenyans, the Nigerian ladies swept their Ugandan opponents aside by the same scoreline to progress to the tournament’s knockout round at the Sports Palace Complex in Yaounde. The 2021 African Championships was originally scheduled for 2020, but the tournament was postponed due to COVID-19.