Quadri causes upset to equal Toriola’s Olympics records in Rio



Motivated by the inspiration of legend Segun Toriola, Aruna Quadri yesterday defied all odds to demystify one of the tournament’s favourites, Chinese Taipei’s Chuang Chih-Yuan with a 4-0 bashing to berth in the fourth round of the men’s singles of the table tennis event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

For making it to the fourth round (last 16), Quadri has equaled the feat achieved by Toriola at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in China where the former African champion made it to the same stage of the championship.

The Nigerian who is ranked 40th in the world and 27 at the Rio Olympic Games tamed the world’s number seven and tournament’s number five seed to make a giant stride in his career.

If what happened at the 2016 German Open is anything to go by, Quadri has no chance against the Asian star as the 2014 ITTF Star Player was bundled out in less than 15minutes.

Fired up by the loud ovation that greeted Segun Toriola’s exit in the second round of the men’s singles, Quadri was in excellent form with an emphatic routing of his highly-rated opponent.

The defeat suffered by the Asian star was that disgraceful that he could not win a game in the 4-0 ((11-6, 12-10, 11-6, 11-7) bashing.

Notably, four year ago at London 2012, Quadri’s victim – Chuang Chih-Yuan had reached the bronze medal match, where he was beaten by Germany’s Dmitrij Ovtcharov.

Like Quadri, another star of the night was Ukraine’s Kou Lei who attracted the attention by upsetting top seed.

Kou Lei, the no.28 seed, ended the hopes of Frenchman, Simon Gauzy, the no. 13 seed (11-6, 6-11, 16-14, 11-9, 11-6).

In the fourth round match, Quadri will be faced with another task as he is expected to battle against Germany’s Timo Boll, ranked 13 in the world and tournament’s number 10 seed

Slimflame:
Keep going...if nah bronze