The 34-year old Nigerian, who last Saturday recorded the
nation’s only win so far in any event at the Games, won the first game against
the 3-time US champion and looked like she could cause an upset, but the
craftier American devised a means to claim the 4 remaining games.
Despite a convincing 4-1 win over Dora Madarasz last
weekend, facing Zhang who is ranked much higher, was always going to be a tough
proposition for Edem
Although Zhang easily won Games 2 and 3, the 4th Game could
have gone either way as Edem was close to forcing a tie-break in the 4th Game,
but an unforced error saw her give up a point that would have put the Game at
10-9 with a chance to serve for 10-10. Zhang knew anything could happen, made
use of a timeout to stem the Edem’s rhythm.
With three matchpoints saved in the deciding set, turning it
around and saving seven would have been nothing short of miraculous. Ultimately
Edem did not show up to be rolled over, she fought hard to give the 31st ranked
American a match.
Edem’s loss now leaves Quadri Aruna as the only Nigerian
left in the Table Tennis event in Tokyo. Aruna has been seeded 15th and will
play his first match early on Tuesday morning.
0 comments:
Post a Comment