The only African left in the race for the $400,000 prize money at the World Table Tennis (WTT) in Doha, Qatar, Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna has advanced to the third round of the men’s singles.
This was after he ousted Japan’s Masataka Morizono with a convincing 3-1 victory on Tuesday.
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Being the third meeting between the two players, it was Aruna that dominated from the start of the encounter against Morizono and this reflected in the outcome of the tie.
Matching the Japanese shot-for-shot, Aruna was in charge in the first game which he won 11-6; he repeated the same form in the second game to win at 11-9.
However, he surrendered the third 1-11 due to what was clearly loss of concentration.
A determined Aruna returned to the table in the fourth game and raised his performance to dominate from 7-7 before eventually winning at 11-7 to complete the 3-1 rout of his opponent.
Next for Quadri is another Japanese star, Harimoto Tamakazu who he is going to face in the third round on Wednesday March 10 as he seeks to go beyond the quarterfinal finish he achieved at the WTT Contender Series last week.
