Nigeria suffered its first defeat at the 2018 ITTF World Team Championships holding in Halmstad, Sweden, just as Egypt are fighting to avoid drop to the second division of the competition.
Having won against Turkey and Argentina, Nigeria was on the losing side on Tuesday against Slovakia in what was could described as a setback to their promotion ambition in Sweden.
The West African side fielded the trio of Segun Toriola, Aruna Quadri and Olajide Omotayo against the Slovakia’s trio of Lubomir Pistej, Wang Yang and Samuel Novota.
It was Toriola that first tasted a 3-0 defeat in the hand of Pistej, but Quadri restored parity with an overwhelming 3-0 bashing of Yang.
Omotayo, who has been superb in the tournament, narrowly lost 2-3 to Novota to give the Slovak team a 2-1 lead.
But the fourth game was beyond Toriola, who was beaten 3-0 by Yang to hand Nigeria its first defeat in the competition.
Nigeria will on Wednesday confront Australia and Bulgaria to determine their qualification to the knockout stage of the competition.
For Egypt, the fight to remain in the championship division remains their main goal in Sweden.
Having lost four matches in the group, Egypt will be walking a tight rope when they take on the host Sweden in their last group game of the competition in the men’s event, while their women team will also be facing Russia after recording four loses in their debut at the elite cadre.
For Egypt’s Ahmed Saleh, the fight to remain in the elite division is what occupies their mind as a team in Sweden.
Saleh said: “I think playing in the Championship has not been easy but we have been trying our best in the three matches played so far.
“Particularly the match against Germany which Omar Assar had a good performance while we also tried but we were just unlucky to have lost.
“Now we are out of fighting for the top three in the group as we will be aiming to maintain our status in the Championship.”
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