Quadri Aruna reinforced his reputation as one of table tennis\u2019s elite with a sensational 4\u20132 win over Germany\u2019s Benedikt Duda to reach the round of 16 of the 2025 ITTF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
The victory, sealed at the Lusail Hall on Tuesday, ensures he is the last African standing in the men\u2019s singles following the exit of Egypt\u2019s Omar Assar in the second round.
Despite entering the tie with a 1\u20132 head-to-head record against the left-handed Duda, Aruna delivered a composed and strategic performance.
He took the opening set 11\u20139, only for Duda to respond emphatically with an 11\u20134 win in the second. Regrouping, Aruna shifted tactics in the third set, exploiting Duda\u2019s forehand to take the set 11\u20138.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A contentious service fault call in the fourth set saw him lose focus briefly, resulting in an 11\u20132 loss.
But the Nigerian displayed trademark grit in the fifth set, battling back from 3\u20139 down to level at 9\u20139 and eventually stealing it 12\u201310 in a stunning turnaround.
Buoyed by that comeback, Aruna held firm in the sixth set to close out the match 11\u20139 for a 4-2 victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quadri Aruna reinforced his reputation as one of table tennis\u2019s elite with a sensational 4\u20132 win over Germany\u2019s Benedikt Duda to reach the round of 16 of the 2025 ITTF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, PUNCH Sports Extra reports. The victory, sealed at the Lusail Hall on Tuesday, ensures he is the last African standing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Aruna.jpg?fit=700%2C394&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13769,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13768\/revisions\/13769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}