Quadri eyes Lagos ITTF World Tour title

STILL basking in the euphoria of his achievements at the 2014 Africa Top 16 Cup,  ITTF Star Player, Aruna Quadri, believes the aura of the feat will lift him when the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour, also known as Lagos Open, serves off next Tuesday at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium.

  Looking beyond the successive defeats he suffered at the Kuwait and 

Qatar Opens this year, as well as his quarterfinal exit at the ITTF Africa Senior Championships in Cairo, the Oyo State-born star says he is ready to excel in Lagos.

  “I was unlucky to have travelled for 48 hours before arriving in the Kuwait Open due to the fact that I had to wait 27 hours in Hamburg Airport in Germany because of the strike.

So, I arrived in Kuwait the same day that I played. 

  “At the Qatar Open, I failed to take my 

chances against Slovenia’s Bojan Tokic in the second and third sets, which cost me the whole match. I can attribute these failures to playing alone without a coach because I believe that having a coach behind me would have surely made a difference,” he lamented.

  The GD Toledos of Portugal star said his fans should expect nothing less than victory. “By the special grace of God, I am coming to Lagos with a strong positive mind and I believe that it’s very possible to lift the trophy in Lagos this year. I know it’s not going to be an easy task, but I am going to give it all my best because of my poor outings so far this 

year.”

    He admitted that all the seeded players are capable of causing surprises but beaming with a lot of confidence, Quadri said he hopes to reenact the form that aided his triumph at the 2014 Africa Top 16 Cup.