December 09, (THEWILL) – Taiwo Mati, the 16-year-old former national junior champion, on Tuesday won a bronze medal in the boys’ doubles event at the 2021 ITTF World Youth Championships in Portugal.
Mati, who spent almost seven months training with Quadri Aruna during the COVID-19 lockdown, teamed up with Peru’s Carlos Fernandez in the boys’ doubles.
Mati and his partner were awarded a bronze medal as the number 14 seeds despite losing the semi-final tie 3-1 to Russia’s Maksim Grebnev and Vladimir Sidorenko, the number nine seeds.
Mati and his partner had a great tournament, including a comeback in the quarterfinals when they dragged themselves from the brink of defeat to beat Norway’s Borgar Haug and Italy’s John Oyebode, the number seven seeds, winning the game 5-11, 9-11, 16-14, 11-7, 11-9.
In his post-match remarks, Mati said: “I feel so good, I didn’t believe we could get to this stage. We just needed to gain some momentum and courage during the match because we were down 2-0. We just keep on fighting. I’m so happy about this.
Fernandez, who won the bronze alongside Mati, described it as a dream come true.
He said, “This is a dream come true, I was not thinking of winning a medal, I cannot believe this is real! Now we will fight our hardest to win. It makes me so proud because to win a medal for Peru in a World Championship is unbelievable.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
