Team Nigeria’s general captain and badminton player, Anuoluwapo Opeyori, had a terrible start to his Paris 2024 Olympics campaign, falling in straight sets to Switzerland’s Tobias Kuenzi in their Group N encounter.
Kuenzi, who had earlier lost to China’s Li Shifeng in straight sets (21-13, 21-13), performed admirably against the higher-ranked Nigerian.
Despite a competitive first set that Kuenzi won 22-20, he cruised to a 21-14 victory in the second set to win the match 2-0.
Kuenzi is ranked 181st in the men’s singles ranking while Opeyori is ranked 10th.
Opeyori faces a daunting challenge in his final Group N match against world No. 6 Li Shifeng on Wednesday (today).
In another action for Team Nigeria today, the Super Falcon will seek to advance from Group C of the women’s football tournament when they face Japan in their last group game in Nantes.
They had lost their first two games against Brazil and Spain, needing a win against the Asians to stand a chance of progressing.
So far, Nigeria has only recorded one win at the ongoing Paris Olympics, courtesy of the D’Tigress inspiring 75-62 over Australia in the women’s basketball game on Monday.
Before then, the quartet of Quadri Aruna, Omotayo Olajide, Offiong Edem and Fatimo Bello were eliminated in the first round of the table tennis event.
Following the suspension of Cynthia Ogunsemilore, Nigeria’s last hope in the boxing event, Adam Olaore also crashed out of the Games on Sunday after losing to Kazakhstan’s Aibek Oralbay in the round of 16 of the men’s 92 kg heavyweight category.
