Nigeria’s table tennis hopeful in the singles event Aruna Quadri has qualified for the quarter-final making him the first ever African tennis player to reach this stage at the Olympics.
Before Monday’s win, Quadri was tied with Nigeria’s seven-time Olympian Segun Toriola to have made the fourth round of the singles event in table tennis.
Quadri beat his opponent Timo Boll of Germany 4-2 in the fourth round of the table tennis event.
In the third round Quadri crushed Chuang Chih-yuan of Chinese Tapei 4-0, while he demolished Yang Wang of Slovakia 4-1 in round 2.
It took Quadri just 10 minutes to steamroll German opponent; winning the first three sets 12-10 12-10, 12-5.
However, Boll fought back to win the 4th set and 5th set 11-3, 11-5.
In the keenly contested 6th set, Quadri fought hard to dislodge Boll 11-9 entering into the annals of history as the first African table tennis player to go this far.
Dolapo is a writer and journalist who works with YNaija. He has interests in Christianity, politics and sports.
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