Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri on Friday lost 4-3 to Korea’s Lee Sangsu in a Group A match at the 2017 ITTF World Cup holding in Liege, Belgium.
The 16th-ranked Korean showed his class winning the first game 11-8.
But Quadri bounced back with a 11-1 win. The Polish Open champion increased the lead winning successive games at 11-7, 11-5 to put the match ahead of the Korean.
However, the Korean, who bundled out former Olympic and World Champion – China’s Zhan Jike at the 2017 World Championship in Germany, dug deep to rally back into the game.
The seventh game which was the decider lived up to expectation with the two players producing superb performance to the admiration of the fans.
Quadri may have raised his game but the Korean was full of tricks to win the encounter at 11-9.
However, the Nigerian still has the chance to advance to the next stage as he battles American Kanak Jha in the final group match later in the day.