Persaud, Burrowes record victories

National Junior Table Tennis Championships…
– in Novice and Intermediate categories

By Timothy Jaikarran

Day 2 of action in the National Junior Table Tennis Championships commenced on Saturday, January 25, with the finals of the Novice boys, Intermediate girls, and the commencement of the Men’s U18, Women’s U18, Men’s U15 and 15 years-and-under girls’ categories.

Novice Male and Intermediate Female
In the Intermediate Females’ finale, the Burrowes sisters, Samirah and Sufah, were pitted against each other in somewhat of a repetition of October 2019. Last year’s result was repeated, with Samirah prevailing over her sister 11-8, 11-5 and 11-8.
In the Novices finals, Yuteshwar Persaud was made to work for his victory over Muhammed Baksh. Persaud won the first match 11-5, but Baksh won the next two matches 12-10 and 11-7. This, however, this did not bother Persaud, and he stormed to two straight wins — 11-9, 11-8 — to take the title.

Men’s U-18
This category saw a total of 10 groups participating. Of the 10, one player from each group advanced to the knockout stages.
Coming out on top in group one was Jonathan Van Lange, who won his matches against his opponents Urial Isadore (11-3, 11-5, 11-6) and Tawfeeq Rahim (11,3, 11-5, 11-6).

In group 2, Kaysan Ninvalle had dominating victories over Joshua Lucas (11-5, 11-8, 11-6) and Yuteshwar Persaud (11-8, 11-5, 11-9).
The remaining matchups saw Isaiah Layne, Jamal Nicholas, Colin Wong, Krystian Sahadeo, Niran Bissu, Terrence Rausch, Curtis Mc Rae and Peter Persaud advancing to the knockout stages.

Women’s U-18
The category consisted of four groups, and only two players from each group advanced to the knockout stages. In group one, Thuraia Thomas emerged as the number one player, winning her matches against Sufah Burrowes (11-2, 11-3, 11-4) and Maria Da Silva (11-2, 11-3, 11-2).
Sufah Burrowes advanced by winning her match against DaSilva (11-4, 11-7, 11-4). In Group Two, Crystal Melville won 11-8, 11-4, 11-7 against Samara Sukhai; and 11-1, 11-1, 11-1 against Laetitia Garner. Sukhai also qualified for Group Two as well.

The remaining four players that qualified from Groups Three and Four are Jasmine Billingy and Samirah Burrowes of Group Three, and Nkechi Mc Rae and Akira Watson of Group Four.

Men’s U-15
In this category, Jonathan Van Lange again dominated Group One, as he came out on top with victories against Narren Persaud (11-5, 11-7, 11-4) and William Penn (11-4, 11-3, 11-2). Also qualifying from the group was Narren Persaud.
Ninvalle topped Group Two with compelling victories against Kyle Chung (11-5, 11-2, 11-4), Timothy Braithwaite (11-5, 11-4, 11-6) and Tyler Orderson (11-0, 11-0, 11-0).
The other victors emerging from the remaining groups are: Krystian Sahadeo, Chase Outar (Group 3), Colin Wong, Tyrese Ward (Group 4), Ebo McNeil, Saalih Rahim (Group 5), Malachi Moore, Tawfeeq Rahim (Group 6), Peter Persaud, Christopher Barrow (GRoup 7) and Umar Percival, Adrian Melville (Group 8).

15 years-and-under Girls
This category had the least amount of participants. It featured two groups of three participants, with the top two advancing to the knockout stages.
In Group One, Thuraia Thomas came out in first place with victories over Nkechi McRae (11-5, 4-11, 11-4, 11-2) and Samara Sukhai (11-6, 11-3, 12-11); while NKechi McRae was the other person to advance.
In Group Two, Crystal Melville claimed first win with a commanding victory over Akira Watson (11-5, 11-5, 11-4). Also advancing from that group was Jasmine Billingy.