Persaud, Burrowes, Baksh through to knockout stage

National Junior Table Tennis Championships…

By Timothy Jaikarran

The National Junior Table Tennis Championships commenced at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Friday, January 24, with several exciting encounters scheduled.
This highly anticipated event saw various young athletes battling in the Novices and Intermediate categories on the first night of competition, in which play began at 16:00hrs with all players seemingly poised and ready for action.
The first category of play was the Novices Boys 1st stage, in which there were two groups in this category with a total of four players per group. According to the rules, after the first stage, the top two players from each group would advance to the knockout stages.

Boys Novices
The first encounter featured Yuteshwar Persaud and Osaye Emmanuel. This contest was easily won by Persaud, who returned scores of 11-10, 11-9 and 11-6. He then won his third-round match against Marayana Bostwick 11-8, 11-10 and 11-8. Persaud’s final match, against Narayan Goodridge, saw him losing the first game (12-11), but bouncing back to win the last three matches 11-8, 11-7 and 11-7.
In the end, Persaud topped group one to advance to the knockout stage.
Second place was more technical in nature, as the remaining three players in the group: Osaye Emmanuel, Marayana Bostwick and Narayan Goodridge, each ended on four points at the end of play, each having won two matches and lost one.
This meant the ratio of the number of points won to points lost had to be calculated, and the player with the better ratio ranked higher. Goodridge was thus ranked second in his group with a ratio score of 133. Bostwick had 125, and Emmanuel 33.33.
In Group 2, Muhammad Baksh and Dominic Sandy qualified for their group. Baksh made light work of Sandy, defeating him 11-6, 11-6, 11-3; Shane Razack 11-6, 11-5, 11-6; and Jelani Jones 11-1, 1-0, 11-2).
Sandy defeated Razak (11-11, 11-5, 11-5) and Jones (11-8, 11-3, 11-3).
Heading into the knockout stages, Yuteshwar Persaud was pitted against Diminic Sandy and Narayan Goodridge against Muhammad Baksh.

Intermediate Girls
This section of the competition saw two groups divided into a total of 7 persons, with three in Group One and four in Group Two.

Topping Group One was Samirah Burrowes, who defeated Maria Da Silva 11-6, 11-4, 11-3; and Shamy Lynch 11-2, 11-4, 11-3.
Da Silva settled for second, defeating Lynch 2-11, 11-5, 11-6, 9-11, 11-5.
In Group Two, Surah Burrowes and Isasha Harry emerged victors. Burrowes defeated Harry 10-0, 11-8, 11-6, 11-5; Akeira Fowler 11-8, 11-8, 11-2, and Laetitia Garner 11-5, 11-5, 11-6. The second placed Fowler defeated Harry 11-6, 11-8, 11-0; and Garner 11-8, 11-8, 4-11, 11-10.
In the knockout stages, Samirah Burrowes will be going against Akeira Fowler and Maria DaSilva will be going against Surah Burrowes.