The local pair of Aaron Wilson and Sarvesh Mungal had to settle for a bronze medal in the Under-15 Boys' Doubles at the Caribbean Regional Table Tennis Federation Cadet and Junior Championship San German, Puerto Rico, on Friday.This after they were beaten by top seeded pair Brian Afanador and Manuel Gomez of Puerto Rico 11-6, 11-9, 11-13, 11-7 in their semifinal match.Earlier in the day, Wilson and Mungal defeated Jose Gonzalez and Carlos Perez of Puerto Rico in the round-of-16 before they swept past Jamaicans, Samuel Ricketts and Korey Moulton in the quarterfinal.
The other T&T pair of Arun Roopnarine and Meshach Pillai, bronze medallists in this same event last year did not get past quarter-final opponents Yomar Gonzalez and Giovanny Delgado of Puerto Rico, going down 0-3.Roopnarine and Pillai blanked Barbadian pair Rashard King and Stephen Payne 3-0.The bronze medal was the second for T&T so far at the tournament after the local quartet got a bronze in the team event on Thursday which secured a qualifying spot in the Latin American Table Tennis Union (LATTU) Cadet and Junior Championships in Lima, Peru in June.Yesterday, Roopnarine, Aaron Wilson and Pillai advanced to the second round of the singles competition.
The fourth seeded Roopnarine was clinical in defeating Joseph Johnson of Guyana 11-3, 11-9, 11-2 and Maurice Lie of Suriname 11-6, 12-10, 11-8.Fifth ranked Wilson edged Glenn Smith of Dominican Republic 11-5, 14-16, 11-6, 6-11,14-12, coming from 4-8 down in the deciding set. Pillai was second in his group after he defeated Daren Chambers of Jamaica 7-11, 13-11, 11-9, 7-11,11-4 but went under to Jose Luis Toribio of Dominican Republic 4-11, 17-19, 8-11.Mungal, however did not qualify as he was beaten 2-3 by Ivan Vargas of Puerto Rico, 0-3 to Barbadian King and 1-3 to Sunil Logan of Guyana.In the knock-out round, Roopnarine, Wilson and Pillai all have byes in the knock out round-of-32 but were expected to be in action last night in the last 16.
On Thursday, the local quartet won easily against Guyana (3-0) but lost to eventual champions Puerto Rico (3-1) to end in third spot in the seven-team competition.A day earlier, T&T shut out of Barbados 3-0 but was beaten by Dominican Republic 3-1 with Roopnarine getting the lone win, 11-8, 10-12, 11-3, 6-11, 11-7 over Emmanuel Lozano.The T&T boys' ended the day on a high as they swept past Jamaica 3-0.Dominican Republic took the team silver as it registered wins over Jamaica, Guyana and Barbados all by 3-0 scorelines to end with nine points as it lost to Puerto Rico which ended with maximum ten points.