Aruna Qualifies for WTT Singapore Smash Round of 32 – Sport – The Guardian Nigeria News – Nigeria and World News

Quadri Aruna made it to the Round of 32 in the men’s singles of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Singapore Smash at the Singapore Sports Hubs OCBC Arena yesterday.

The Nigerian defeated Germany’s Ruwen Filus 3-2 (14-12, 6-11, 11-3, 6-11, 11-9) in a heated match in the first round of the championship.

With the win, Aruna will face French star Alexis Lebrun in the next round. Lebrun beat China’s Yuan Licen in the 64th semi-finals.

It was not so smooth for Africa’s second seed, Egypt’s Omar Assari, who lost 3-0 to Portugal’s Tiago Apolonia in the round of 64. Her compatriots Hana Goda and Mariam Alhodaby also beat their German and Japanese opponents.

Talking about his tough win over Filus, Aruna said it was 5-1 (for him) and then 7-2 and suddenly I won five points in a row.

It was a very good comeback and I was focused because six or seven years ago I experienced almost the same situation against him and I knew it wasn’t over until it was over.

I kept my cool, kept playing and eventually he made a few mistakes which made a big difference,” said Aruna.

The Nigerian, who finished 14th, added: He (Filus) was not only a tough opponent, we were together in the same team (in the German Bundesliga) for about two years and he knows me very well. I believe it was 50-50 before the game and as we’ve seen it was 11-9 in game five.