Aruna Quadri has bid farewell to the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender in Durban, South Africa following his elimination from at the quarterfinal stage of the championship on Saturday.
The Nigeria international was booted out of the tournament by his counterparts from Ukraine Yaroslav Zhmudenko following the latter's stunning triumph in three straight sets in the quarter-final of the men’s singles.
After the best African ranked Table Tennis star had reached the quarterfinal following a slim victory over 16-year-old Frenchman Felix Lebrun in the round of 16 before he met his unfortunate end against the 145th-ranked Ukrainian.
Earlier, the Nigerian had made a promising start to the competition as he subdued Chinese star Sun Wen in the Round of 32 to set up a Round of 16 date with Frenchman Lebrun.
In all three sets, Aruna came out underwhelmingly in the contest as he fell woely by 11-8, 11-7 and 11-3 in the one-sided match that lasted just 23 minutes the Ukraianian to seal the ticket to the semi-final.
It was not the outing the world number 14 evisaged going into his first competition of year 2023 following his impressive form at the African Championship in 2022 when he won his second continental prize.
In other category, Dina Meshref of Egypt, who is another African in the closing stages, also recorded progression to the quaterfinal of the women’s singles, but could not do enough to beat Chinese Taipei’s Chien Tung-Chuan.
The Egyptian star suffered a lost 3-2 in a keenly contested match that swung both ways before Tung-Chuan claimed the final set 13-11.
