Nigeria’s table-tennis star, Aruna Quadri is back in top 20 of the International Table-Tennis Federation (ITTF) world rankings.
Quadri gained three steps to occupy the 19th spot while African Games gold medallist, Omar Assar also moved one step forward to 16th in the ITTF ranking.
Meanwhile, Quadri started his campaign at the ITTF World Cups in Macao with a convincing 4-0 (11-6), 11 -4, 11-6, 11-6) victory over Puerto Rico’s Daniel Gonzalez.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist will play his final group 15 game against Portugal’s Marcos Freitas on Wednesday, April 17 at the Galaxy Arena.
Quadri is the first and only African to have won an ITTF title outside the continent, a feat he achieved in 2017 after beating Japan’s Kaii Yoshida to win the Polish Open.
He currently leads his group at the ongoing ITTF World Cup after Freitas had earlier beaten Gonzalez 4-0 (17-15, 11-7, 11-7, 11-1) but the Nigerian amasses more points than the Portuguese to be rated number one in the group.
The tie between Aruna and Freitas will decide the winner of the group who will then advance to the second stage of the competition.
Egyptian Assar also started well in Group 16 of the competition with an overwhelming 4-0 win over Iran’s Noshad Alamiyan to set up a deciding group tie against Sweden’s Truls Moregard on Wednesday.
