The fourth day of action at the 2018 ITTF Nigeria Open ended the hopes of several Nigerian top shots in pursuit of glory with the exception of the big man himself, Aruna Quadri.
The round of 16 women’s singles featured Nigeria’s Funke Oshonaike who lost to U21 second place winner, Fan Siqi of China 1-4; while Cecilia Akpan lost by the same scoreline to tournament no 2 seed, Pergel Szandra of Hungary.
In the same round, commonwealth silver medalist Segun Toriola was easily dispatched by former Nigeria Open champion Olah Benedek of Finland 0-4 while Jamiu Azeez fell to Gavin Rumgay of Scotland 2-4. But it was a different ball game between World no 18 and the tournament no 1 seed, Aruna Quadri and his compatriot Kazeem Makanjuola as Quadri dispatched his man in four straight sets to progress as the only Nigerian left in all the categories of the 2018 Nigeria Open.
This was then followed by the U21 men and women’s finals and it was a clean sweep for the Chinese. Guo Yan (CHN) defeated Fan Siqi (CHN) 3-1 while Wang Shaobo (CHN) crushed past Bhanja Ronit (IND) 3-0.
The quarter finals of the women’s singles witnessed quite a number of upsets spearheaded by the Chinese contingent. Six of the final eight were Chinese, alongside the female first and second seed from Thailand and Hungary respectively who were dumped out to make it an all Chinese semifinals in the women’s singles event.
In the male category, Aruna Quadri made light work of Romania’s Sipos Rares defeating him 4-0. Scotland’s Gavin Rumgay earned a hard fought 4-3 victory over Tanviriyavechakul Padasak of Thailand. Likewise Wisutmaythankoon Supanut of Thailand won Finland’s Olah Benedek 4-3 in an exciting encounter.
Semifinals and Final games will be played live at Teslim Balogun on Sunday as the World awaits a new champion in the 2018 ITTF Nigeria Open.
