Olajide Omotayo’s improvement in every tournament continues as he comes to within one win at the ongoing ITTF Challenge Spanish Open to the main draw of the Men’s singles.
Omotayo clearly fired up by the performance of his compatriot, Aruna Quadri last week at the Swedish Open, defeated Turkey’s Ibrahim Gunduz in the first Group Four match of the preliminary round.
Despite being seeded below his opponent, Omotayo started well against the Turk with 12-10, 11-5 wins but his opponent rallied back to win the third game at 11-3.
Knowing what was at stake, Omotayo did not play to the gallery as he wasted no time to dismiss the European star in the next two games at 11-8, 12-10 to complete the 4-1 rout.
This win has boosted the confidence of the Italy-based Nigerian as his last group match will be against Kazakhstan’s Denis Zholudev on Thursday November 23.
Also, on same day, Omotayo will partner Nigeria-born Congo Brazzaville’s star – Saheed Idowu in the doubles event and they are expected to battle against their Irish counterparts in the preliminary round of the event.
Also, an opportunity in recent times Hong Kong’s Jiang Tianyi has not enjoyed the best of fortunes but at least he does have the consolation of two ITTF World Tour Men’s Singles titles to his name. In 2008 he won in Brazil, in 2015 in Hungary.
