National Seniors Table Tennis Championships…
By Timothy Jaikarran
The National Seniors Table Tennis Championships ended on a high note, and with Kyle Chung walking away with the “C” Class Open title; Elishaba John with the U21 Male title; Natalie Cummings with the Senior Women’s Championship title; Jonathan Van Lange with the B Class Open title; and Christopher Franklin with the Male Seniors’ title.
C Class Open
Heading into the semifinal matchups, Troy McRae booked his spot in the final after a hard-fought match against Jasmine Billingy in which he prevailed 3-2 (11-7, 12-10, 3-11, 6-11, 13-11); while Kyle Chung booked his spot by clean-sweeping Narren Persaud 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 11-7).
The finals were definitely worth waiting for – to see Chung and McRae battling to the death. However, Chung prevailed by edging out McRae 3-2.
Chung won the first round 11-9, lost the following two 11-8 and 11-9, then dug deep to make an impressive comeback an take the final two sets 11-9 and 11-2 to secure the title.
B Class Open
Here, the Van Lange-John showdown turned out to be an epic see-saw battle, with Van Lange winning the first set 11-5, before losing 9-11; then the duo was tied at 2 sets each. However, in the final set, Van Lange snatched victory with an 11-8 finish to claim the title.
U-21 Male
In this highly anticipated U21 finale, Van Lange and Elishaba John were pitted against each other. In their semifinal journey, Van Lange had defeated Colin Wong 3-0 (11-6, 11-4, 11-2), while John had struggled against Isaiah Layne but managed to come out on top 3-2 (11-8, 9-11, 11-4, 11-12, 11-8).
In the first game in this finale, John dominated his much younger opponent, claiming the first three sets 11-7, 11-5, 11-5. Then Van Lange fought back to claim each of the next two sets at 11-8. Thus it all came down to the last set, with the scores ending at 3-2 in John’s favour. He sank Van Lange 13-11 to claim the category.
Natalie Cummings
Senior Women
In this category, the format of play was strictly round-robin. This saw Natalie Cummings emerging victorious after dominating all her matches. She defeated Thuraia Thomas 11-4, 11-5, 11-7; Crystal Melville 11-5, 11-3, 11-2, and Jasmine Billingy 11-4, 11-6, 11-6, all in straight sets.
Male Senior
As expected, the finale came down to Shamar Britton pitting skills against defending champion Christopher Franklin. The champion claimed each of the first two sets 11- 6, but Britton returned with some fire and took the next two rounds 12-10, 11-7 to level the showdown. In the final set, Britton’s fire was doused by Franklin as he retained his title with an 11-7 win.
