BEVERLY HILLS, March 15, (THEWILL) – Although the Chinese continue to dominate the top ranks of the Table Tennis game, one name has maintained the African representation in general and the Nigerian involvement in the top-most echelon of Table Tennis in particular for the better part of a decade. Nigeria’s expert in the game of ping-pong, Quadri Aruna has consistently delivered that he is currently ranked 20th, the highest ranking of any African and miles from the second-placed player from the continent, the Egyptian Omar Assar, who is ranked 41st.
As the son of a teacher, Aruna grew up in a society that expected academic brilliance from the teacher’s children and at a time when deciding for a career in sport was viewed as an admission of intellectual laziness reserved for the slow of mind and blunt of brain. As a child watching proceedings in the Oyo table tennis hall, the only difference that pertained to his own case, and that marked him out for the renown for which he presently boasts was that he enjoyed maternal support from his “teacher-mother”.
At about 10 years of age, the young Aruna often accompanied his older brother, Femi, to the table tennis hall in Oyo. As their house was beside the hall, Aruna was known to peep through the door to watch older boys play with Femi, who had a good hand of the game. It was not long before his interest was noticed and he began to get invited to join in and play with the other boys.
As far as he did not allow his studies suffer because of his newfound love for table tennis, his mother allowed him continue. Aruna’s initial tutelage came Abolarin Oluwole, a tennis player who turned trainer and is credited with discovering the Nigerian tennis superstar. After being granted permission by Aruna’s mother to train him, the trainer honed the boy’s skills and focused his determination through dedicated fidelity to the sport.
Credit to the careful ministrations of trainer Oluwole and the tender attention of Aruna’s mother, efforts were focussed on keeping the player still as dedicated to his studies as he was to perfecting his service game. Tennis sessions were off limits during examination periods and the young boy had the presence of mind to follow this guidance.
The young Quadri’s qualities that stand him out today in Tennis on the continent and beyond were already obvious in his days as a pupil and then as a student in Oyo Town. They reflected in his primary education at LA School New Durban and later also when he proceeded to the Oba Adeyemi Grammar School where he was always referenced as an exemplary learner.
Life lessons he learned in class, he replicated in tennis. Whenever the odd loss happened to him in a game of tennis, the up and rising star was never one to sulk for losing. Rather, he was fond of reaching out to older players who saw him lose the game to help with an assessment of his performance and their experienced review of what led to his loss. The lessons from these feedback loops helped to greatly improve his wholesome quality as a tennis player.
Quadri’s humble origins are illustrated most perfectly in the trajectory of his growth from the Oyo Table Tennis hall to the halls of tennis glory across the globe. What began as admiration for Femi’s skills with the bat to being invited to personally play with the boys took on more serious tones when he continued as he was summoned to represent his High School in both community and competitive table tennis events. The highpoints of his qualities were too beautiful to ignore that he was soon representing his local government area. Then, he became the Oyo state table tennis player at relevant competitions.
The availability of the best training facilities and gear in Europe ensured that the Nigerian tennis star’s career took off abroad in 2010. With the best at hand, the boy who began with practically nothing but fiery interest blossomed into a world beater. When he represented the Portuguese club side Sporting, Aruna remained unbeaten in his last five years and single-handedly guided the club to consecutive league titles.
In the 2012 London summer Olympics, Aruna represented Nigeria at the table tennis men’s single. He defeated Spain’s Carlos Machado 4-2 before bowing out in the second round to Turkey’s Bora Vang by 4-2. It was a learning experience for him at the biggest sporting stage in the world. It was his style to take the lessons forward and that he did.
The succeeding Olympic games saw a returning Quadri in 2016. He turned on the style in the first round, after many tussles, to defeat Slovakian player Wang Yang 4-1. However, the highpoint of his matches was the second round matchup against Taiwanese pro-table tennis player Chiang Chih-yuan.
Aruna wrote the biggest upset of the tournament when he defeated Chuang in a 4-0 flawless thumping without losing a single set. Yet, there was more. In the third round, Aruna faced renowned German player Timo Boll who as of June 2019 was ranked 6th in the ITTF world ranking. In that Olympic match, Boll came undone by the Nigerian in a 4-2 victory
The win earned him a quarter-final berth against the tournament’s number one seed, China’s Ma Long, the Olympic and world champion at the time. At this stage of the competition, Aruna was naught with Ma Long’s fast pace and looping attacks, which was too overwhelming for the Nigerian’s attacking play.
Despite the perceived gulf in class between both, Aruna gave Long a run for his money, resorting to defensive play and some back-from-the-table moves, which created an entertaining scene providing memorable rallies which have become a vital staple online. Long eventually swept Aruna off his feet by seeing him off to a non-responsive 4-0 defeat, an evidence of Long’s status at the time.
The gifted tennis player continued to fly the Nigerian glad high when he competed in the 2017 ITTF African Cup. Here, he was purely peerless in his journey to glory. The list of those he vanquished was impressive. He defeated Algeria’s Naim Karali 4-1 in the quarterfinals while had a close call against Egypt’s Mohammed El-Beiali as he saw him off to a 4-3 defeat in the semi-final stage.
In the finals, Aruna faced long-term rival the second highest-rated African, the Egyptian Assar in a breathtaking, edge-of-the-seat encounter to emerge a 4-3 winner to take the tournament and confirm himself as the undisputed African Cup Champion in 2017. However, when the pair met again in the final of another edition of the competition the following year, cementing their top ranked status as the best in Africa, the Egyptian prevailed after a failed forehand loop from Quadri.
The rivalry extends beyond the two world class players. It is a microcosm of the feud for African Table Tennis supremacy between Egypt and Nigeria. These two African bastions of ping-pong have both produced some of the continents strongest players over the last decade, the likes of Segun Toriola, Monday Merotohun, Olufunke Oshonaike, Dina Meshref and El-sayed Lashin.
In recognition of the talents of Quadri, he was awarded the Outstanding Sportsman of the Year at the 2018 Nigeria Sports Awards. Part of his personal achievements make Aruna out as the first African to reach the quarter-final stage of the table tennis Summer Olympics that took place in Brazil in 2016. In 2018 at the Commonwealth Games in Australia, he finished with a silver medal to his name after playing a fine tournament to the very end. In the Polish Open, he emerged the competition winner, being the first African to win the ITTF championship outside the continent.
Surprisingly, the Nigerian icon of table tennis has never had a coach in his entire professional table tennis career. He once claimed that it was because it was a luxury he could not afford. Although he admitted that it was difficult playing without a coach, he believed paying coaches to come to his tournaments means a cut in his budget which might affect his ability to afford entry fees for participating in more tournaments.
Early last year, before the vestiges of the spread of the coronavirus began to grow into a pandemic, precisely on February 3, 2020, Aruna signed a deal to represent TTC Rhönsprudel Maberzell Fulda in the German Bundesliga, after 10 years of playing in the Portuguese league for Sporting. The deal meant he could start featuring for the German club as from September 2020.
Yet, with all these a sword of Damocles hangs over his participation in the Tokyo Olympics. Because Aruna could not continue his match at the African Olympic Qualifying tournament in Tunisia as he aggravated a long-standing injury which forced him to pull out of his final match against Tunisia’s Adam Hmam. The Tunisian was promptly handed the last ticket to Tokyo, as a consequence.
Aruna’s last shot at picking a spot at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games comes alive when the World Singles Qualification Tournament (WSQT) begins at the Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena in Doha, Qatar.
At that Doha meet, 73 men and 60 women will be aiming for the nine slots available at the four-day tournament which begins on Sunday March 14 to 17. Quadri is one of the listed players and among the top seeds, the Nigerian used the WTT Contender Series and Star Contender as warm-ups for the qualification. Here, he hopes to pick one of the four slots for grab in the men’s singles. With a quarterfinal finish at the WTT Contender Series and Round 16 finish at the WTT Star Contender, Aruna believes he can join the league of elite players heading to Japan in July.
According to the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), in the men’s singles qualification, three spots will be available for qualification in stage one while entries will be split into three knockout rounds, starting from the round of 32, with the winner of each knockout round qualifying for the singles event at the Tokyo Olympics. The losing finalist and semi-finalist from each of the three knockouts will then proceed to stage two where one final spot is available.
The losing finalist and semi-finalists from each of the three knockout rounds will then be drawn into one final knockout round where the winner will eventually qualify for the singles event at the Tokyo Olympics.
That has become Aruna’s final straw as he prepares for another shot at Olympic glory with the injury that prevented his qualification a forgotten past. But, no matter how it plays out, the 32-year-old has more than proven that dedication to one’s goals and single-minded focus on the work necessary to attain those goals are the ingredients for attaining one’s dreams with the accompaniment of fame and fortune.
Quadri truly embodied these and continues to do so with his pursuit of Olympic glory.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
