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Indications emerged on Wednesday that Africa’s best table tennis player at Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Aruna Quadri will lead his compatriots – Segun Toriola, Edem Offiong and Olufunke Oshonaike for an improved rating when the September ITTF ranking is released this weekend.
Ranked 40th before the Rio Olympic Games in Brazil and seeded 27 in the men’s singles, Quadri’s heroic performance against some of the world’s best including former world number one, Germany’s Timo Boll will count for the Nigeria when the new ranking is made known by the world table tennis ruling body.
Already listed among the top 20 players in the world that will compete at this year’s ITTF Men’s World Cup in Germany, the Oyo State-born star will be aiming for another record ranking as he had already been rated 25 in the world based on his performance in Brazil. But the September ranking may move Quadri higher.
Also, a member of the ITTF Club 7, Segun Toriola will also benefit from the ranking after his first round win over Czech Republic’s Dmitrij Prokopcov, who was rated higher than the Nigerian.
The Czech was rated 79th but he was shown the exit by Toriola, who was ranked 120 in the world. What would have been another big win for Toriola was thwarted by 22nd ranked Japan’s Niwa Koki in the third round with a 4-2 win.
Despite exiting the Olympic Games in the first round, the duo of Olufunke Oshonaike and Edem Offiong will also get improved ranked after recording victory in their preliminary round of the women’s singles in Brazil.
At a time when Nigerian players will be moving up the ranking, their counterparts from Egypt will be dropping after their surprised exit in Rio. Dina Meshref, Nadeen El-Dawlatly, Khaled Assar and the North African inspiration star, Omar Assar were shown the doors early in Rio.
Aside from Omar Assar, the trio of Meshref, El-Dawlatly and Khaled played only one match to be bundled out of the tournament.
Unlike his compatriots – Omar Assar fought his way into the second round after being beaten by Ukraine’s Lei Kou 4-3. Omar Assar may drop further in the latest ranking from his 55th ranked place in August 2016.
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