12 Aug 2015
Doha, 12 August 2015. The ‘2015 Jordan Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Open’ in Jordan’s capital city Amman ended with an impressive performance of Aspire Academy student-athlete Mohammed Abdulhussein: Not only did the 16-year-old collect his first ITTF Junior Circuit Boys’ Singles title, he also won silver in the team competition. In total he won every single one of his 13 matches and finished the tournament undefeated.
At the semi-final stage of the Junior Boys’ Singles event, Mohammed Abdulhussein ended the hopes of Iraq’s Hussein Jabber, the no.10 seed (9-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-8, 13-11), and in order to win his first single’s title, the Qatari had to overcame the player listed at the top of the order: By defeating Saudi Arabia’s Ali Alkhadrawi in the Junior Boys’ Singles final (11-3, 11-9, 11-8, 11-7) he was able to clinch the Boys’ Singles crown on August 11.
For Mohammed Abdulhussein it was his first ever ITTF Junior Boys’ Singles title, however he already showed promising performances earlier in the year by reaching the final in Tunisia in March, where he lost to Abdulraham Al-Naggar. Besides that, he performed well in February in Bahrain and later in the year in June at the ‘Egypt Junior and Cadet Open’, where he reached the quarter-final stage.
“Mohammed played very well during the entire tournament and showed outstanding performances for his age, especially in the final where he faced a very experienced player, who was two years older than him. This was also a result of the hard work Mohammed put in at the recent training camp in Malaysia where he had the chance to train with Qatar’s senior national team and now he’s already looking forward to playing in the ‘Cadet and Junior Arab Championships’ that start on Friday, August 14, in Amman,” said Aspire Academy table tennis head coach Zlatko Novakovic.