Quadri Aruna yesterday bowed out in the second round of the Men’s Singles at the on-going World Table Tennis (WTT) Singapore Smash after a gruelling 3-1 loss to Olympic and World Champion, Ma Long of China.
Last Friday, Aruna shone like a star by beating Korea’s Lee Sangsu 3-2 (11-13, 11-9, 11-7, 6-11, 11-8) in an explosive encounter while Egypt’s trio of Omar Assar, Ahmed Saleh and Dina Meshref were shown the exit in the first round of the singles event
In the epic the second round match against Ma Long, Aruna showed no respect to the Chinese superstar regarded as the greatest of all time (GOAT) being the first player to win the Olympic and World titles back-to-back in the men’s singles.
Despite losing the first set at 11-4, Aruna shocked the Chinese superstar with a long margin win in the second set at 11-5 to level up at 1-1.Unable to control his opponent’s service coupled with unforced errors, Aruna squandered a bright start to surrender the third set to Ma Long at 11-6.
The fourth set was match power-for-power and shot-for-shot with the Chinese showing some nervousness when Aruna was ahead at 7-6. But the experience of the Olympic champion came to the fore as he fended off the strong challenge from the Nigerian to walk away with 11-9 win for an overall 3-1 victory and advance to Round of 16 of the Men’s Singles.
“I didn’t get intimidated, I was just playing my own game and trying to be myself as much as possible but in the end, he was much better than me. I hope I can do better next time as I fly back home tomorrow with the hope of doing well at the next tournament in Doha,” Aruna said afterwards.