France-based professionals, Rheann Chung and Dexter St Louis were in action late yesterday, at the Beausejour Indoor Facility in St Lucia, bidding to steer Trinidad and Tobago to Caribbean Table Tennis Championship team gold.
In the women’s team final, T&T squared off against Guyana, and in the men’s team decider T&T did battle with Dominican Republic.
In the women’s semis, Chung won twice to guide T&T to a narrow 3-2 victory over Dominican Republic. The five-time Caribbean women’s singles champion whipped Lineth Vila 11-8, 13-11, 11-1 to earn T&T a 1-0 lead.
Eva Brito levelled for DR, getting the better of Aleena Edwards 8-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-5. And DR led for the first time, thanks to Yasiris Ortiz’s 11-3, 11-5, 11-8 dismissal of Linda Partap-Boodhan.
Chung, though, beat Brito to bring T&T back on level terms, and Edwards stopped Vila to send her team into the final.
In the other women’s semi-final, Guyana beat Barbados 3-0. In their final round robin fixture, late on Tuesday, T&T blanked St Lucia 3-0 to emerge as the top team in group two. In the men’s team semis, T&T whipped Barbados 3-0, and Dominican Republic cruised past Guadeloupe by the same margin.
Curtis Humphreys handed T&T just the start they needed against the Bajans, battling past Trevor Farley in five tough games, 11-9, 11-9, 7-11, 10-12, 11-8.
St Louis doubled the advantage against the younger Farley brother, Kevin, the four-time Caribbean men’s singles champion romping to an 11-9, 11-3, 7-11, 11-3 triumph.
And reigning national champion David Mahabir completed the demolition job, the 62-year-old Canada-based player hammering Mark Dowell at 8, 4 and 4 to secure a berth in the final for Team T&T.