Paris 2024: Nigeria’s Tennis Stars, Aruna, Olajide, Begin Olympic Quest Saturday

Nigeria’s male table tennis stars, Quadri Aruna and Omotayo Olajide, will be in action this Saturday in the men’s singles round of 64 games at the South Paris Arena in the ongoing 2024 Olympics.

Olajide will be the first among the four Nigerian table tennis players in Paris to get involved by taking on Iran’s Noshad Alamiyan at 7:00pm Nigerian time, while Aruna will take to the table two hours and 15 minutes later against Romania’s Eduard Ionescu.

The 29-year-old Olajide is making his second appearance at the Games, and he has been fired up for the heat of the event.

Aruna, 35, will be making his fourth appearance at the Games with the hope of going past the quarterfinals, which he achieved in Rio in 2016.

He will be meeting Ionescu for the second time, their first being in the semi-finals of the European Champions League, in which the Romanian defeated the Nigerian 3-2.

In the women’s singles event, Nigerian duo Offiong Edem and Fatimo Bello will also begin their quests on Sunday and Monday, respectively.

Edem will play Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi by 9:00 pm on Sunday, while Bello will play France’s Jia Nan Yuan by 9:00 am on Monday.