Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri remains Africa’s most rated player as he retains his 25th spot in the world with 2446 points.
According to the latest world rankings released by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), the Oyo State-born ping ponger who moved from 40th to 25th in September 2016 to become the first African player to be in the top 25 bracket in the world, is still the continent’s best.
The 2014 ITTF star player who lost to world number one, Ma Long at the 2016 Olympics in the quarter-final in the latest rankings, is however tied on the 25th spot with two other players having all amassed 2446 points each.
The duo are Chen Chien-An of Chinese Taipei and Gacina Andrej of Croatia.
Meanwhile, Quadri has said it was an easy decision for him to partner his continental rival – Egypt’s Omar Assar in the men’s doubles of this year’s ITTF World Tour.
The Africa’s best two players to begin their quest by joining might in the men’s doubles event of the first ITTF World Tour tagged Hungarian Open in Budapest.
“It was an easy decision for me to decide to partner Omar Assar [rated 45th in the world] because we seem to understand ourselves when we play together. We played very well at the Polish Open and Austria Open and we have made up our mind to play together in all ITTF World Tours this year with the aim of having Africa’s presence at the World Tour grand finals later in the year.
“We intend to play doubles together in all the World Tour we will be taking part in this year and I am hopeful that we can achieve our aim,” Aruna, who became the first African to play in the quarter-final of the Olympics said according to a press release from ITTF-Africa.
Also, Assar while defending his resolve said: “Aruna Quadri is a very good player in singles and doubles and I think our relationship has been closer lately so we share more ideas off the table too. The first time we played together was at the 2015 Polish Open when we got to quarterfinal with our big win over Freitas and Gacina. Our target is to make it to the grand finals of 2017.”
It will be recalled that the duo who both ply their trade in the in the elite French league, started their partnership when they made it to the quarter-final of 2015 Polish Open and main draw of 2016 Austria Open with their biggest win being against the duo of Portugal’s Marcos Freitas and Croatia’s Andre Gacina at the 2015 Polish Open.
Discussion about this post