Nigeria’s veteran table tennis star, Segun Toriola suffered an early exit Thursday, at the 2009 World Table Tennis Championships in Yokohama, Japan, after losing 4-1 to home boy Hidetoshi Oya in their round of 128 encounter of the competition which started on Tuesday.
Currently ranked 61 by the International Table Tennis Federation, ITTF, Toriola, who is the country’s sole flag bearer, bowed to the 147th-ranked Japanese player in the men’s singles event.
After blistering first set which ended 19-17 in Oya’s favour, Toriola bounced back to win the second set 11-3 before the Japanese rallied to 11-8,11-5,11-5 finish in the final three to advance to the next round of the Championships.
It is the Nigerian’s fourth successive appearance in the competition since the 83 year-old competition was split into individual and team championship in 2003 and his worst performance in three editions, in the singles event.
Toriola reached the round of 64 in the last two editions in Paris, France and Shanghai, China in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
He reigned as Africa’s number one player for a decade, precisely from 1998 to June 2008 when he was dethroned by Egyptian Eli Saleh Ahmed. Despite this, he remains Nigeria’s top player.
The 34 year-old who has represented the country at five Olympic Games has won many laurels including four All Africa Games gold medals in singles and doubles events as well as two African Championships singles titles.
Toriola made his debut at the Olympics at the Barcelona edition in 1992 and his best record came last year in Beijing when he reached the quarter finals after defeating former world number one, Belgian Jean-Michel Saive.
He narrowly lost 4-3 in the last eight of the singles event of the summer games to South Korean star, Oh Sang-Eun.