By Akeem Lawal
NIGERIA’S fast rising table tennis star, Esther Oribamise
has declared her readiness for the ITTF Challenge Seamaster Nigeria Open which
serves off on Wednesday at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of Teslim Balogun
Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.
Oribamise, who emerged the National Junior League women’s
champion, told Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com in a media conference heralding this year's edition of the competition in Lagos on Tuesday, that she has all it takes to
compete at the highest level by following the footsteps of Nigeria table tennis
legend, Funke Oshonaike.
"Funke Oshonaike is my role model and someone I
respect a lot. She won’t be ready to give up on her position and I also don’t
want to stay where I am, I want to progress. So I believe with hard work and
dedication, I can go beyond her limit and not just take over her position.
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| Funke Oshonaike |
“I’ve prepared very well for this competition because I
have attended series of championships like the African Youth Games that ended
on the 31st of last month and the National Junior League which was concluded
day before yesterday. So I believe I’m going to perform better,” Oribamise told Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com.
From the inception of the ITTF Challenge Nigeria Open, no
Nigerian player has won the title in the singles events and Oribamise believes the
players need to put in more efforts to be able to put up a good challenge.
“Championship sometimes is not about the country hosting, it’s
about ranking and your ability. We have rankings and we have players, it
doesn’t matter if we are hosting, what matters is the ability of the players.
So we can’t say because we are hosting, we are expecting a less player to
defeat a good player. So I believe Nigerians need to train harder so they can
be better than the foreign players,” Oribamise said.
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