By Francis Ajuonuma
Despite crashing out early in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Lagos 2023 ongoing at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Multi-purpose Indoor Sports of the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, Ghana’s Felix Lartey says he is so excited competing in the tournament.
Lartey was defeated by Wang-Wei Peng of Chinese Taipei 3-0 (8/11, 5/11 and 5/11) in the preliminary round one to exit tournament.
Speaking at his post game interview, an elated Lartey noted that competing against some of the best ping pongers in the tournament was a huge experience and hailed the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the high-quality tournament.
“The match was quite good and I am happy coming back to Nigeria because we don’t have this kind of tournament in Africa. I am grateful for the chance to play because Nigeria is experienced when it comes to staging a top-class event.
“I played quite well but you cannot win all time and I hope to return to training to correct my mistakes,” said Lartey, who has also entered to compete in the men’s singles with fellow countryman, Francis Antwi.
Meanwhile, in some of the preliminary round 2 games decided on Tuesday, Denmark’s Anders Lind had to dig dip to beat Jang Seongil of Korea 3-2 (5/11, 9/11, 11/8, 11/6 and 11/8) in a keenly contested game to move closer to the main draw.
However, it was not the same for his fellow countryman, Martin Buch Andersen, who fell 0-3 (7/11, 7/11 and 6/11) to Frenchman, Bastien Rembert, who will now face his French brother, Jules Rolland, who sent out Nigeria’s Adeola Oloruntade 3-0 (11/5, 11/5 and 11/1),while, Lind will keep a date against Oba Kizito Oba of Cote’d Ivoire for a place in the main draw.
The Ivorien was too strong for Nigeria’s Emmanuel Augustine in round 2, winning the game by 3-1 (10/12, 9/11, 11/9 and 9/11)
Also through to round 3 is Korea’s Park Ganghyeon, who defeated Peter Hribar of Slovenia 3-1 (11/5, 2/11, 11/5 and 12/10) and will take on Manav Vikash Thakkar of India, who had an easy 3-0 (3/11, 5/11 and 7/11) win over Godwin Alabi of Ghana.
In the ladies’ singles, Asiaju Bisola of Nigeria will battle Korea’s Yang Ha Eun for a place in the main draw. Asiaju gained a walkover over Essevoh Mireille Leba of Cote’d Ivoire who failed to turn up for their game, while Ha Eun powered past Yang Yiyun of China 3-1
