The Nigerian table tennis team began their campaign in the men’s Team – Group 4 at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia on a bright note by defeating Malaysia and Belize in their opening two ties on Thursday.
Olajide Omotayo defeated Chee Feng from Malaysia in three straight sets recording a 13-11, 15-13, 11-7 in his second match of the day.
Omotayo had earlier defeated Rohit Pagarani from Belize 11-4,11-2,11-2 in his first game.
Bode Abiodun also beat Mohammed Rizal from Malaysia 11-5,11-7,13-11 in his second game after he had outclassed Devesh Hukmani also from Belize 11-5, 11-3, 11-2 in his first game.
In the men’s team doubles, the pair of Azeez Jamiu and Olajide Omotayo lost 11-4, 11-9 and 11-7 to Javen Choong and Chee Feng Leong from Malaysia.
They had earlier defeated Terry Su and Devesh Hukmani from Belize 11-6, 11-4, 11-5.
Jamiu bounced back from the team’s doubles defeat to edge Mohammed Rizal from Malaysia 3-2 in a keenly contested game.
The 34 year old won the game 11-7, 9-11, 11-5, 7-11, 11-8 to hand Nigeria a 3-1 win over Malaysia in their second group game.
Bode Abiodun will take on Javen Choong from Malaysia and Terry Su from Belize later in the day in his remaining games while Jamiu will Rohit Pagarani from Belize.
The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games will be Nigeria’s 13th since their maiden appearance in 1950.
The team Nigeria will also be seeking to surpass their best performance at the competition having won a record 37 medals at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada.
Nigeria won 36 medals (11 Gold, 11 Silver and 14 Bronze) at the last edition of the Commonwealth Games which held in Glasgow, Scotland 2014.
