Quadri Aruna has been the only African male player to have featured at the end-of-the-year WTT Finals twice in China and Singapore, and the African champion has maintained his status as one of the top ranked 20 players in the world from the start of 2023. After retaining his African title at the 2023 African Championships in Tunis, Aruna has not been impressive at global level exiting most of the tournament in first round and this happened on Tuesday October 31, at the WTT Champions Frankfurt in Germany when he was convincingly beaten 3-0 by Danish star Jonathan Groth. Yet Portugal-based star is not giving up hope of picking his ticket to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as he seeks personal qualification either through the continental qualifiers or via his world ranking, OLALEKAN OKUSAN writes.
Quadri Aruna remains one of the most active African table tennis players in the world competing in several tournaments and making his mark in some of these competitions.
The Nigerian, regarded as the king of African table tennis, still holds the record as the most successful African player on the world stage for being the first to reach the quarterfinal of the Olympic Games and World Cup.
At global ranking, he still maintains the record as the first African to hit top 10 in the world and all these feats have made Aruna one of the most sought-after players in the world.
Yet Aruna is disappointed with the defeat Team Nigeria suffered against Egypt at the 2023 African Championships to lose the continental Olympic Games sole ticket to the North African.
“It was a very bad feeling missing the Olympics qualification but of course, I had put that behind me as I really want to focus on the future and see what it will bring for me,” he said. “Hopefully, we will qualify for the Olympics in Paris individually either through continental singles qualification or via the world ranking.”
What Aruna failed to achieve with the team became a reality for him as he was able to retain his men’s singles title at the expense of some of the arch-rivals.
Even on his way to be crowned the champion of the men’s singles, Aruna avenged the 2019 African Games defeat against his compatriot Olajide Omotayo with a convincing 4-0 bashing and he continued this form in the final when he also dominated Egyptian veteran Ahmed Saleh with another resounding 4-0 win to be crowned the 2023 champion.
But the memory of his thigh injury in 2019 was what Aruna could recollect about his win in Tunis.
“Nothing was easy for me in Tunisia but I’m very happy that I was able to retain my title,” he noted.
“It was a very difficult one especially against some of the best players in the continent. Tunisia brings positive and negative memories to me.
He continued: “I remember four years ago, I got injured during the Olympics qualification tournament and I was not able to qualify early because I had to qualify through my world ranking to Tokyo 2020.
“I also missed out on winning the African Cup in Tunisia four years ago after losing to Saleh and this year, I’m very happy that it is a positive memory.
“I was able to retain the title I claimed in 2022 in Algeria. This has indeed erased the 2019 memory for me.”
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Aruna rued missing the first window to qualify for Paris 2024: “I think I have about three options to qualify for the Olympic Games but after losing the sole team ticket to Egypt, we will be aiming to qualify individually at the Singles Olympics Qualifiers in Rwanda next year with three top players picking their tickets to Paris.
“The last spot will be through the world ranking which I hope to maintain. I am very sure that winning in Tunisia has given me like 99 per cent of assurance that I will qualify for Paris 2024.”
He however, said the dominance of Nigeria and Egypt would continue as long as the two countries continue to invest in the sport.
“Table tennis is improving well in Africa. It is really growing as we now have different players from different countries,” he further said. “Competitions are now more tense than before and it feels the future of table tennis in Africa is bright.
“But I do not see that the dominance of Egypt and Nigeria will end in Africa because most of their players continue to play international tournaments like WTT. Also, we now have players from Algeria playing international tournaments but I think this will not stop Nigeria’s dominance.
“A very good example was what we witnessed in Tunisia, Omar Assar of Egypt was injured but I still made it to the semi-final with my compatriot Omotayo. There were no Tunisian or Algerian players in the last four as most of them exited early in the competition.
“I feel the dominance of the two countries cannot be halted so soon and I hope other nations will continue to improve,” the 2012 World Player of the Year said.
Meanwhile, Aruna has revealed that he would remain with table tennis even after retirement.
“Table tennis brings joy to me so I don’t think I can ever get tired of playing table tennis, even when I retire, I will still continue to play table tennis,” he added.
