Commonwealth Games: Team Nigeria falls in Table Tennis finals, bags silver

Team India soundly trounced Team Nigeria 3-0 in the finals of the Men’s Table Tennis team event at the Commonwealth games in Gold Coast.

Achanta Sharath, Sathiyan Gnanasetkaran and Harmeet Desai helped Team India defeat Team Nigeria’s Bode Abiodun, Segun Toriola and Olajide Omotayo with Aruna Quadri watching from the sidelines.

In the opening singles match, Sharath Achanta defeated Bode Abiodun in four games with Abiodun winning just one set. The Indian won the first two sets 11-4, 11-5 before Abiodun rallied back to an impressive 11-4 win with six game points. Abiodun built momentum as he saved two match points but could not hold as Achanta closed out the 4th set 9-11.

Veteran Segun Toriola started the second game on the front foot racing into a 6-4 lead before relinquishing it for Gnanasetkaran to tie 6-6. Again, Toriola went up 10-6, missed a game point which allowed the Indian comeback to 10-10. Toriola did enough to win the set 10-12.

Gnanasetkaran revved back into the game, smartly beating Toriola with his varied shots in the remaining three sets, 11-2, 11-3, 11-4.

All hopes hinges on the doubles as Desai and Gnanasekaran took to the table against Team Nigeria’s Olajide and Abiodun. It ended in a crushing three set loss (11-9, 11-5, 11-4) for Team Nigeria as Team India clinched Gold.

Team India had earlier won the Women’s Table Tennis team event against Singapore.

Team Nigeria celebrated doing better than the last Commonwealth games where they won a Bronze medal.