Nigeria’s number one female table tennis player, Ajoke Ojomu, has offered an explanation for the upsets that are being recorded in the main draw of this year’s WTT Contender Series in Lagos, saying top-ranked players have to give their best or bow out.
Sports247 reports that Ojomu’s verdict comes on the heels of the ouster of this year’s women’s top-ranked player, Hina Hayata, who lost to the defending champion, Sreeja Akula of India.
Akula appeared to show more familiarity with the setting at Molade Okoya Hall of Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere, as she won 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 11-3) in one of the major shocks at the ongoing third edition of the World Table Tennis (WTT) sanctioned competition.
Ojomu pointed out that such upsets are meant to occur, as top players normally meet one another in feisty contests at this stage of such a highly rated international competition.
She expatiated, “Those that have higher rankings and big points are always in the main draw, which we all know how difficult it is.
“We in the main draw also collide with one another. We are not always separated to face those from the qualifying rounds.”
As the competition rolls along at jet speed, with sterner games unfolding one after the other, ahead of the final on Saturday, for which $100,000 is on the table for the winner, Ojomu admitted that all players have to be at their best.
“At this stage, you will end up meeting people who are seded like you; which would make the game very, very difficult.
“So, it’s either you play your A-game or come out with nothing; because the best players are coming to meet you,” the USA-based female ping-pong ace submitted
