Quadri handed debutants at ITTF World Cup in China

The poster-boy of Nigeria and Africa’s number one ranked table tennis player, Aruna Quadri who is set to fly Nigeria’s flag at the 2020 International Table Tennis Federation has been handed an ‘easy’ task as he is going to face debutants from Europe in Group Three of the First Round stage of the championship holding […]

The poster-boy of Nigeria and Africa’s number one ranked table tennis player, Aruna Quadri who is set to fly Nigeria’s flag at the 2020 International Table Tennis Federation has been handed an ‘easy’ task as he is going to face debutants from Europe in Group Three of the First Round stage of the championship holding in Weihai, China.

At the draw held on Thursday November 12, Quadri will slug it out for a place in the main draw against Germany’s Patrick Franziska while his final group match will be against the young Slovenian, Darko Jorgic who is considered as one of the emerging stars from Europe.

International Table Tennis events have been on hold since March 2020 and the restart tournaments are being organised to kick-start international events following the COVID-19 pandemic which broke out across the globe.

The four Restart Competitions are; Women’s World Cup, Men’s World Cup, ITTF Finals and WTT championship scheduled for Macau later this month as well.

According to ITTF, Quadri is regarded as one of the dark horses of the competition who is making his sixth World Cup appearance since making his debut in 2009 in Moscow, Russia.

Quadri is a bronze medallist at the 2019 ITTF Africa Cup, and he is seeded No 13 among the 20 players competing in the three-day tournament.

“A regular at world title events, Quadri Aruna is no stranger to pushing the table tennis elite to the limit.

“Aruna will want to improve his best quarter-final finish of six years ago in Düsseldorf, as he could not go past the round of 16 in last year’s edition. What will the African representative bring to the table in Weihai?,” ITTF wrote.

The top two players in the four groups are expected to advance to the main draw where they will be drawn against the top eight seeds in the main draw of the championship.

While the ITTF Women’s World Cup started last Sunday, the Men’s World Cup will serve off today in Weihai, China.