Yuvraj Dookram and Aleena Edwards led a T&T team that left yesterday for Dominican Republic via Panama to compete at the 58th Senior Caribbean Table Tennis Federation (CTTF) in Santo Domingo.
Among the travelling party were top ranked local player Dookram, one of the few players to have gotten past USA-based David Mahabir in a tournament in recent years, Arun Roopnarine, 12-time women's singles champion Aleena Edwards, Brittany Joseph and Linda Partap-Boodhan.
Roopnarine, currently ranked third, is coming off a 5-1 win loss average in team events at the recent Solo sponsored National Championships while the veteran Mahabir who had already been selected to play in the Masters and is defending Masters champion will meet the team on arrival, and will now be the third player on senior men's team.
Edwards recently returned from completing her masters in coaching table tennis.She, together with top ranked Linda Partap-Boodhan and under-18 champion Brittany Joseph who finished third in trials and takes the place of an unavailable France-based Rheann Chung comprise the women team.
The head coach is highest rated Level III coach Reeza Burke whilst previous national coach, the experienced Ian Joseph serves as manager and assistant coach.
In addition to five-time Caribbean queen Chung, the T&T camp is without Curtis Humphreys who opted out for personal reasons while former five-time Caribbean champion Dexter St Louis was axed two years ago for younger players.
Last year in Martinique, T&T captured bronze in the women and was fourth in the men while Aaron Wilson, the reigning two-time Caribbean Junior singles champion got bronze in both the Under-21 and senior singles events.
The T&T women are four-time winners in the team event in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2013 while the men won in 1980, 2009 and 2012.
Puerto Rico and host Dominican Republic are installed as favourites while T&T will have its work cut out as Martnique, Guyana, Barbados, Curacao and St Lucia have taken entry.