NAN-S-3
Performance
By Millicent Ifeanyichukwu
Lagos, Aug. 10, 2017 (NAN) Nasiru Bello, National Coach of Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF), says he is hopeful the country’s players will excel at the ongoing “Seamaster International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Challenge Nigeria Open.
Bello, who expressed the hope in an interview the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the players’ performances on Thursday in Lagos, said they had been impressive.
NAN reports that the NTTF organised tournament which served off on Aug. 9 is holding at the Molade Okoya Thomas Hall, Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos.
Bello added that the chances of the players to advance to the main chart at the end of the preliminaries later on Day 2 of the tournament were bright.
“The qualifying stage ends today, and we still have our top players in the queue and going by their consistency, Nigeria has brighter chances of making the main chart.’’
He told NAN that the players comprised of home and foreign-based participating in the U-21 boys’ and girls, senior men and women’s singles and doubles events.
Meanwhile, in some of the matches played in the men’s event, Nigeria’s Kazeem Makanjuola defeated Abrefa Derek of Ghana 4-3 and Monday Merotohun defeated Commy Emma of Ghana 4-2.
Also, Oyetayo Sola defeated Francisco Jose-Pedro of Portugal 4-0 and Solanke Azeez defeated Dilator Visilije of Russia 4-2.
NAN reports the 4th edition of the championships recorded 95 male and 55 female players from 22 countries jostling for the 46,000 dollars prize money. (NAN)
MIL/ERO/PDE
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(Edited by Emmanuel Okara/Peter Ejiofor)