Olajide Omotayo lost to Cyprus’ Marios Yiangou at the 2019 ITTF World Championship just as Segun Toriola’s recovery against United States’ Victor Liu was thwarted on Sunday night.
Omotayo was on the race to beat his Cyprus counterpart but the experience of the veteran European came to fore against the Nigerian with a recovery from 1-3 to win at 4-3.
Despite dominating the first game by winning at 11-7, Omotayo could not hold the sway as he lost the second at 7-11.
And the Nigerian raced to the lead after winning the third and fourth game at 11-7, 12-10. But his efforts to complete the rout against the Cypriot came to a halt as his opponent leveled up in the fifth and sixth games at 5-11, 9-11.
And in the seventh game which was to be the decider turned out to be one-sided as Omotayo fell 1-11 to concede defeat at 4-3.
Unlike Omotayo, Toriola was dominated by the Chinese-born American as the veteran was losing 6-11, 8-11, 7-11 but the experience of the former African champion came to fore as he rallied back to win the fourth game at 11-7.
But not ready to surrender the lead to the Nigerian, the American fought well to win the fifth game at 12-10 to complete his 4-1 win over Toriola.
