Top table tennis stars nationwide have taken over the Ikoyi Club, Lagos, in search of honours at the fifth NNPC-NUIMS tournament, which has a brand-new Toyota Corolla as the star prize.
The five-day event features over 70 participants in six different categories, including Men’s Singles (Premiership), Men’s Singles (Championship), Ladies Singles, Veterans, Septua Veteran Singles and Men’s Doubles.
Chairman of Ikoyi Club’s Table Tennis Section, Dare Olude, on Monday, expressed delight at the large turnout of participants, pointing out that the star prize has given a high value to the tournament.
“This is the first time a prize of this magnitude will be handed out to the champion, and it goes alongside big generator sets for other category winners.We are delighted and it promises to be fun to the final on Friday,” Olude stated.
In some of the Premiership matches decided on the opening day, Tony Aroede defeated Ivy Ikokwu, while John Akingbade outlasted Kehinde Ojo. Afeez Oduntan also had a bright start so did Gbenga Fetuga as they both had wins in their round-robin qualifying matches.
In the championship, Kazeem Tewogbade defeated Femi George. Yomi Benson, Ola Oriola and Kehinde Lawal also secured wins in their round-robin matches.
In the veterans’ singles, Ajibona Lookman, the father of Super Eagles star Ademola Lookman, defeated Lanre Omotayo, while Seun Oki got the better of Ebiye Sosimiari
Ayo Ogunyinka was victorious against Bola Ogunrinde while Kolawole Salami won Augustine Anozie.Games Captain, Okechi Ugoji, informed that the Ladies’ Singles and other categories would commence Wednesday with all the preliminaries scheduled to be completed on Thursday with finals of all the categories slated for Friday.
