The poster boy of Africa and Nigeria table tennis, Aruna Quadri, yesterday began his third World Table Tennis, WTT tournament in 2023 with an emphatic 3-2 comeback win against a familiar foe, Ruwen Filus, of Germany in the first round of the men’s singles of WTT Singapore Smash.
The keenly contested match which ended 3-2 (14-12, 6-11, 11-3, 6-11, 11-9) was a classic battle between attack and defence but it was Quadri who reached the round of 32 at the Singapore Sports Hub’s OCBC Arena.
After the match, Quadri described the comeback victory as a good omen and added that he was focused because he had experienced the same situation six or seven years ago.
“I knew it was not over until it’s over. I kept my cool. I kept playing and in the end he made a few errors and that made a big difference.
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“It’s not just that he was a tough opponent, we were together in the same team (in the German Bundesliga) for about two years and he knows me very well. I believe it was 50-50 before the game and as we have seen, it was 11-9 in the fifth game,” he said.
However, the second African star, Egypt’s Omar Assar, lost woefully 3-0 against Portuguese international Tiago Apolonia in the first round, failing to move to the next round.
In the round of 32 fixtures billed for today, Quadri will slug it out with Alexis Leburn.
Other results revealed that 2022 Africa Cup champion Hana Goda lost to Germany’s Sabine Winter, 3-1 while Africa’s highest ranked female player Dina Meshref of Egypt defeated Goi Rui Xuan, 3-1 in the first round of the women’s singles.
Meanwhile, the defending Singapore Smash champions China’s Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng made their intentions to retain their singles crowns known as they won 3-0, 3-1 respectively.
It will be recalled that this current WTT tournament is the third in the row as two editions had been held in Durban, South Africa and Doha, Qatar.
