Lanre Jegede Pulls Out Of Asoju Oba Table Tennis Championship.

Over two hundred table tennis players have so far registered to participate in the forty second edition of the Asoju Oba Table Tennis Championship as the tournament officially stroke off yesterday with the Men's Singles event.

The tournament chief Referee, John Peters, who revealed this in an interview Sportsweight.blogspot.com, said that this year's attracted huge number of ping pongers because of lack of table tennis tournament in 2010.

Peters, who doubles as the technical committee chairman of the Lagos State Table Tennis Association, said the participating players were screened to pave way for the growth of the sport because the tournament is part of the Association's developmental programmes.

According to him, two professional table tennis players, Tajudeen Salawu, who lost to Gbenga Anthony in last year's edition and Atinuke Olaide who won the Women's Singles after Rasheeda Ogundele, arrived the country onSaturday for the competition to defend her title.

The former Asoju Oba Champion, Lanre Jegede, who plays professional ping pong in France has pulled out of the competition to pave the way for the upcoming table tennis players who do not opportunity to play regular competitions as Tolu Durosimi- Etti who defeated Ganiyat Ogundele, the winner of a brand new car to mark the fortieth editon also pulled out of the event on health ground.

In some of the games played yesterday at the Sir Molade Okoya Thomas Indoor Sportshall, Ganiyu Ashimiyu beat Taiwo Hassan by three straight set of 11 - 1, 11 - luv, 11 - 3, as Bello Ahmed beat Wasiu Gbenga, 11 - 4, 11 - 7, 7 - 11, 11 - 9.

Adeyinka Adeleye who lost to Gbenga Anthony at the Semi final of last year's edition beat Samson Samuel, 11 - 8, 11 - 6, 12 - 10, just as Kazeem Adeniyi who won the tournament in 2006 walked over Hamed Lawal as Ajulo OLakunle beat Abiola Odunuga.