AFRICAN GAMES 2019: TEAM NIGERIA THRIVING IN INDIVIDUAL EVENT

After the euphoria that greeted Team Nigeria Badminton’s resounding and overwhelming victory in the Mixed Team Event of the All African Games Rabat 2019 holding in Casablanca, Morocco, the teams settled down the very next day, Monday, 27th August, 2019 to the Individual Event.

Nigeria’s dominance in Africa’s badminton continued to glaringly show as, at the end of the Opening Day, only one of it’s eight Singles entries failed to advance to the Round of 16. Clement Krobakpo lost 1-2 to Ghana’s Daniel Sam.

Day Two was much tougher and the action more robust and during the morning session, Nigeria won 11 out of the 11 matches it played, recording a 100% success. It is the day that could well be called “The Day of Upsets”as quite a number of upsets were recorded in the Women’s Singles category and the biggest casualty was Egypt’s Hadia Hosny, a highly ranked and experienced African player who was seeded Number Two Women’s Singles player for the tournament. A 1-2 defeat came her way from Nigeria’s Sofiat A.Obanishola, who is an upcoming player and the youngest member of the team.

Other upsets came from Nigeria’s Zainab Damilola Alabi who defeated Number 5 seeded player, Ogar Siamupangila of Zambia 21-13, 21-11 to advance to the Quarter Finals. Other upsets were Johanita Scholtz of South Africa beating Aisha Nakiyemba[4] of Uganda and Yasmina Chiba of Algeria beating A.Ailet [7] of Mauritius.

The evening session brought down Team Nigeria’s rate of success down a bit with 2 of the featured 7 matches lost with the Men’s Doubles pair of Eneojo Abah and Clement Krobakpo losing 1-2 to the Algerian pair of  K.Mammeri/Y.S.Medel[2] and the Mixed Doubles combination of Amen Christopher/Habeeb Bello losing to G.J.Paul/A.Ailet[8] of Mauritius.

Action resumes today with the Quarter Finals stage of the Individual Event.

Follow this link for the comprehensive and latest day to day results:

Click here for all the results http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/matches.aspx?id=0DFA4B45-214F-4AC6-AADA-7055CE1186BF&d=20190827