Nigerian Players Exit Table Tennis at Dakar 2026

Nigeria’s deputy captain, Matthew Kuti, and his teammate Favour Ojo have ended their runs in table tennis at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal. They both lost their final matches in the preliminary round.

Earlier, Ojo faced a tough match against her opponent from Hong Kong. This loss marked her third defeat in a group of four players. Only the top two players from each group could move to the knockout stage.

Kuti was close to making it to the men’s singles knockout stage. He needed just one more win but lost 0-3 to Francesco Travesan from Italy. This defeat means he joins other African players who were knocked out in the first round.

Out of the 15 African players who started the tournament in table tennis, only two have survived. Algeria’s Tania Morice and Egypt’s Abdelmalk Elsayed are still in the competition.

Both Morice and Elsayed will try to match or do better than the quarter-final finish that Nigeria’s Ojo Onaolapo achieved at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore.