Nigeria’s deputy captain Matthew Kuti and Favour Ojo have bowed out of the table tennis competition at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal after defeats in their last preliminary-stage matches.
Preliminary-round exits
- Ojo began the day with a loss to her opponent from Hong Kong, her third defeat in a four-player group. With only the first two athletes in every group progressing to the knockout rounds, the Nigerian could not advance.
- Kuti entered his final group match needing a win to reach the men’s singles elimination bracket, but Italy’s Francesco Travesan beat him 3-0.
- The result ended Kuti’s campaign and added him to the African contingent knocked out during the opening phase of the tournament.
Only two of the 15 African players who started the table tennis event with hopes of reaching the podium are still competing: Algeria’s Tania Morice and Egypt’s Abdelmalk Elsayed.
Morice and Elsayed will look to equal or better the benchmark set by Nigerian player Ojo Onaolapo, who reached the quarter-finals at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore.
African players eliminated
In the men’s singles, Algeria’s Aylan Goudjil, Benin Republic’s Ganiou Abdourahaman, Senegal’s Amador Ferrer, Tunisia’s Youssef Aidli and Uganda’s Joseph Sebatindira were all eliminated during the preliminary stage.
The women’s singles has also seen the exits of Egypt’s Yara Elbadawy, Ghana’s Joanita Borteye, Madagascar’s Tina Andriantahina, Senegal’s Marieme Diallo, Tunisia’s Ela Saidi and Uganda’s Jemimah Nakawala, who each lost in the group phase.
