We Have Good Chance Of Medals At Commonwealth Games, Says Toriola, Quadri

Fresh from the sterling performance at the just concluded World Team Table Tennis Championship in Japan, the duo of Segun Toriola and Aruna Quadri are now hopeful of medals at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Scotland.

Despite the inability of the team to gain promotion to the elite  division, the ranking of the players have improved globally with Toriola  climbing to 150, while Quadri who made it to the last 16 of the Spanish  Open now rated 153 in the world.

  Having played against some of the Commonwealth teams in Japan, the players believed this has given them the opportunity to have an overview of what to expect in Glasgow.

“Playing against some of the Commonwealth teams or not in Japan don't really means a lot to me because we don't no whether the teams will come to Glasgow with the same set of players. But I was able to watch some of them in Japan and this I believe has helped us to know what we will be expecting in Glasgow,” the erstwhile African champion  said.
    For Quadri, the chance of climbing the podium in Scotland is certain.  “Having played against Commonwealth teams and succeeded, I think our chances of winning medals in Scotland has increased. We shocked England, is one of our threat of winning medal and our performance in Japan is a good sign that table tennis will pick medals in Glasgow.

I think our team will keep improving in every tournament provided that we are getting support not only from the federation but also most importantly from the National Sports Commission (NSC). Also corporate bodies should also support the game to be able to restore the country’s lost glory,” Quadri said.

On the lessons from Japan, Toriola said: “We have learnt a lot from Japan because we saw the problems and how to fix it. I believe the team will work on it during the camping before Glasgow games.”

According to Portugal-based Quadri, efforts must be made to ensure that the preparation commences early for the game.

“I think the best lesson we picked from Japan is to ensure that we arrive early to tournament in order to get acclimatized to time changes and weather condition of the host country. This can only be possible if  there are more support from NSC and other corporate bodies,” he added.