Nigeria’s Aruna Quadri has been named the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) player of the year.
Interestingly, Quadri claimed two awards ahead of players from Asia and Europe at the award ceremony held on Wednesday at the Armani Hotel, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The world’s number 30 ranked player beat the world number one, China’s Xu Xin and his compatriot, Fan Zhendong, who is the 2014 Youth Olympic Games gold medallist as well as Portugal’s Marcos Freitas who is the 2014 European Team Championships winner to the award.
Also, Quadri’s crucial winning point against Olympics and world champion, Jan Zhike of China at the 2014 ITTF World Cup was adjudged the best in the star point category at the second edition of the award.
An elated Quadri described yesterday’s award as the best in his career, while acknowledging the support he got globally from table tennis fans.
“This is the best day of my career and I want to thank the organisers for considering me worthy of this honour. I also want to thank all my fans all over the world for their support, because this is unbelievable for me and I promise to continue to work hard,” Quadri said.