ITTF World Championship: Aruna bows out after creating African record

The impressive run of Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna at the 2021 ITTF World Table Tennis Championships in Houston, US, ended on Saturday as he bowed 2-4 to Sweden’s Truls Moregard in the quarter-final of the men’s singles.

Aruna had set a new African record despite the loss as he became the first African to get to the round of 16 and the quarter-final of the global championship.

The Oyo State-born ping-ponger had defeated Swedish Kristian Karlsson 4-3 [11-9, 5-11, 13-11, 5-11, 6-11, 11-8, 11-6] in the round of 16 before Saturday’s loss.

However, Aruna bowed to enterprising 19-year-old Swede, Truls after falling behind in the first two games 4-2 (13-11, 11-8, 2-11, 11-4, 12-14, 11-7) to crash out of the competition.

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Moregard won the first two sets 13-11 and 11-8 while Aruna fought back to claim the third set 11-2 but his Swedish opponent regained dominance with an emphatic 11-4 win in the fourth set.

Aruna, who plays for TTC RhönSprudel Maberzell Fulda, a top club in the German Bundesliga rallied to a 14-12 victory in the fifth set, but the Swedish forced the game to be stopped after the sixth set with a 11-7 victory.

Aruna, who was also the first African to play in the quarter-final of the Olympics [Rio 2016] was not disappointed given his modest achievement at this year’s World Championships.

“I think I did very well, I gave my heart and soul but the last match was not meant to be.

“The first two sets were really important, we started like 50-50, the first set I was like 10-8 and I lost, the second set too I lost with almost the same margin. The two sets made the biggest difference but of course he [Truls] played amazingly,” Aruna, 2014 ITTF World Player of Year said.

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The 33-year-old Aruna believes his exploits at the ‘Houston 2021’ would motivate more players from the continent to perform better in subsequent editions.

“It will motivate them [younger players from Africa], you know when [Segun] Toriola got to the round of 32 at the Olympic Games, it motivated a lot of us, so I was in the quarter-final at ‘Rio 2016’, Egyptian Omar Assar was motivated and excited, he did the same at Tokyo 2020.

“Now what I did here, I am very sure Omotayo Ibrahim or Omar Assar can even do better,” an elated Aruna rated 19th best player in the world said according to the ITTF-Africa Press Release.