Oyo-born Quadri Aruna and his Ibadan-born counterpart Bode Abiodun have claimed their fourth Portuguese national men’s team title in the colours of Sporting, according to International Table Tennis Federation.
In the Multipurpose Room of the Stadium of Alvalade in Lisbon, they beat São Roque 3-0 in the second leg of the play-off final, after in the first leg, away from home, having recorded a 3-2 victory last Friday..
It is for Quadri Aruna and Bode Abiodun their fourth consecutive title since joining the Lisbon based club.
“It was a tough win this year but a well-deserved victory. We are hoping to return to Europe next season and make an impact. I am so excited, I hope we can continue to raise the bar and also make an inroad to Europe.” Quadri Aruna
The first leg lasted for more than three hours. Nuño Henriques and Tiago Li gave São Roque the perfect start by beating Quadri Aruna and Diogo Carvalho, recovering from a two games to nil deficit (5-11, 5-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-4).
Quadri Aruna levelled matters by overcoming Zhao Tianming (10-12, 11-6, 11-3, 11-1), before Tiago Li accounted for João Monteiro (8-11, 11-9, 11-8, 9-11, 11-3) to restore the home team’s advantage. A critical stage of the fixture, Diogo Carvalho beat Nuño Henriques (11-6, 11-6, 12-10); before responding to the occasion, João Monteiro prevailed against Zhao Tianming (11-9, 11-5, 9-11, 11-3) to seal the win.
Testing times but on home soil less demanding, an impressive win with a single match surrendered, sealed the title.
In January the two Stars also won another Portuguese cup.
