Aruna Quadri – Nigerian tennis sensation

Aruna Quadri is a Nigerian Tennis sensation and former best player in African continent.

Born Aruna Akinwade Quadri in August 9, 1988, in Oyo, Nigeria. As a professional table tennis player, Aruna competed for Nigeria at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2016 Summer Olympics, and 2020 Summer Olympics, reaching the quarter-finals in 2016.

The legendary Aruna with wife Ganiyat

Aruna was born into a polygamous home and he is the 6th of his mothers 8 children. At age 7, he had begun playing indoor table tennis competitions in Oyo town, all thanks to a neighborhood mentor, Mr Oluwole Abolarin, who saw the potential in the young Aruna.

Notably, three of Aruna’s maternal siblings were into sports which includes Aruna himself, his sister, Alaba Aruna Ayoola was into athletics but stopped early because of education, his brother, Femi Aruna, played professional table tennis, but also had to stop to further his education.

In the year 2018, Aruna won the outstanding Sportsman of the year award at the Nigerian Sports Award.

Remarkably, Aruna is the first African player to be ranked top 10 in the world. Aruna and Ganiyat are happily married with three children. The tennis sensation was revealed that despite being one of the top global players in table tennis, his wife beats him during training matches.

The country Nigeria and the world at large recently witnessed the birth of a prodigiously tennis talent with the emergence of a new tennis star in the form of Aruna Quadri Jr, when he clinched a bronze medal on his World Table Tennis debut.

Aruna Quadri Jr, son of the legendary Aruna had in 2014 finished third in the U11 category at the World Table Tennis, WTT, Youth Contender Cup in Villarreal, Spain.

Aruna Jr with his coach and mother

Quadri Jr was under the watchful eyes of his mother, Ganiyat Quadri, who was his coach at the WTT event.

The young tennis star is following in the footsteps of his father, Aruna, who is the current world number 19 and second best Africa’s top-ranked player in the game.

Aruna, in an interview published on the International Olympic Committee’s website, said training against Ganiyat (his wife) has helped in making him a better player.

“My wife was a very good player. Now she doesn’t play professionally. She plays for pleasure, but she is a very good training partner and sometimes she beats me. I am very thankful to her, she is always looking after the kids when I am not at home, which is one of the reasons she is not playing professionally anymore,” Quadri said.

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At the World Cup 2014, he reached the quarter-finals in the Men’s Singles competition.

In the 2017 ITTF World Challenge Bulgaria Open, he advanced to the semi-finals, where he was defeated in a tight match by the eventual winner Dimitrij Ovtcharov. Aruna is known for his forehand-oriented playing style, which gets him many winners. He is a Gewo-sponsored player.

Aruna was in 2014 named the Star Player of the year by the International Table Tennis Federation after he was ranked number 30 in world. He was also part of the Nigerian team that won bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

At the club level, Aruna Quadri recently teamed up with TTC RhönSprudel Maberzell Fulda, a top club in the German Bundesliga Table Tennis.

Sadly, Aruna’s latest defeat at the ongoing African Games in Ghana seems to have to have counted against him as he has been dethroned as the African no 1 player.

Aruna had entered the competition as the best-ranked player and top favourites but failed to secure gold at the end of the day.

He lost to his Egyptian rival Omar Assar in the final and made it 3rd consecutive time that he will be losing to the same opponent in the final of the games.

In the latest ranking released, Aruna fell from his 11th position to 19th in the World and second in Africa while Assar is now number 1 in Africa and 17th in the World.

Aruna can only hope to bounce back and regain his spot as African best in the nearest future.