First time Olympian and Table Tennis star, Quadri Aruna of Nigeria took the world by storm on Saturday July 28^th when he upset the much higher ranked Spaniard Carlos Machado at the EcCel Arena in London sending the Spaniard home as he knocked him out of the tournament. Aruna is ranked 236^th in the ITTF Global Ranking and Machado 80^th and most were expecting the Nigerian to be vanquished at his first match but he instead proved his doubters wrong. However his Cinderella run was stopped short last evening July 29^th when he took on another higher ranked opponent in Turkey's Bora Vang who is ranked 71^st in the world. Aruna fought valiantly throughout his second round match but would eventually succumb to the Turk as he was defeated by a total score of 4 - 2.

Aruna is ranked 6^th in Africa and 3^rd in Nigeria and his performance provides a silver lining moment for the sport of Table Tennis in Nigeria and Africa, something that corporate sponsors and media should take a serious look at.