World Team Tourney: Nigeria, Egypt lose promotion tickets

Africa’s best teams – Nigeria and Egypt were beaten by India at the ongoing ITTF World Team Championship and would miss gaining promotion to the Championship Division of the tournament.

Nigeria and Egypt were unbeaten in the group stages, winning all their five matches to top Group F and H respectively to make it to the quarterfinal stage.

But the two teams were beaten by India in the quarterfinal and semifinal stages of the competition.

Despite beating India 3-0 in the group round, Nigeria met a strong Indian team in the quarterfinal. Nigeria’s trio of Aruna Quadri, Segun Toriola and Bode Abiodun lost to a formidable Asian side led by their talisman, Sharath Achanta.

Despite losing the first two games against Gosh Soumyajit, Aruna Quadri levelled up to win 3-2 and this gave Nigeria a 1-0 lead but Achanta restored parity with a 3-0 win over Segun Toriola. Bode Abiodun put Nigeria ahead again with a 3-1 win over Harmeet Desai to put the encounter at 2-1 in favour of Nigeria.

The battle for supremacy now turned to Achanta and Aruna Quadri but experience prevailed over youthfulness as Achanta defeated Quadri 3-1 to put the match at 2-2.

However, youthfulness overcame experience when Gosh Soumyajit and Segun Toriola clashed in the fifth match with Gosh Soumyajit winning 3-0 to give India the unexpected victory against Nigeria.

Unlike the battle they fought to beat Nigeria 3-2, India had an easy win over Egypt in the semifinal with Achanta being the architect of the victory.

In the first game, Omar Assar defeated Gosh Soumyajit 3-0 but Achanta as usual restored parity with a 3-0 win over Mohammed El-Beiali in the second match.

What was expected to be an easy ride for Egypt in the third match became their undoing as Harmeet Desai demystified El-Sayed Lashin with a 3-1 defeat to puncture the confidence of the Egyptian.

But what really made the match out of the reach of Egyptian was the manner Achanta easily drubbed Omar Assar 3-0 to stop any African team from making it to the elite division of the competition come 2018 in Sweden.

Congo Brazzaville failed to gain promotion to division two while they will campaign in same division in 2018, and Togo and Tunisia still maintained their status in division four.