Nigel Si­mon

T&T men set up a semi­fi­nal show­down with Sri Lan­ka in the 97th to 100th po­si­tion play­offs in the Fifth Di­vi­sion of the Lieb­herr World Team Ta­ble Ten­nis Cham­pi­onship in Dort­mund, Ger­many, to­day from 11 am. This af­ter the lo­cal trio of France-based Dex­ter St Louis, Cur­tis Humphreys and Terell Ab­bott dis­missed the Bar­ba­di­an trio of Mark Dow­ell, Kevin Far­ley and Aaron Bark­er in their quar­ter­fi­nal clash yes­ter­day. St Louis, un­beat­en in the tour­na­ment to date crushed Dow­ell 11-6, 11-5, 11-7; Humphreys' came from be­hind to de­feat Far­ley 7-11, 6-11, 14-12, 12-10, 12-10 and Ab­bott stomped Bark­er 11-8, 12-10, 11-6. The Bar­ba­di­ans had qual­i­fied au­to­mat­i­cal­ly for the semi­fi­nals af­ter top­ping their round-robin Group T by beat­ing To­go (3-2), Ice­land (3-2), Nepal (3-1), Zam­bia (3-0) and Pana­ma (3-1). Ear­li­er on in the round-of-16, T&T need­ed a win by Humphreys to slip past Turk­menistan 3-2. Humphreys be­gan with a loss to Rashid Ahme­dov 9-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-9, 8-11 but four-time Caribbean sin­gles cham­pi­on St Louis got his team lev­el with a 11-2, 11-6, 13-11 whip­ping of Yagshimyrat An­namyradov.

Turk­menistan re­gained the lead at 2-1 when An­drey Antonov over­whelmed Ab­bott 11-6, 11-5, 9-11, 14-12, how­ev­er St Louis kept T&T in the tie by beat­ing Ahme­dov 11-5, 11-7, 11-6 be­fore Humphreys out­classed An­namyradov 16-14, 9-11, 11-5, 11-4 to se­cure a thrilling 3-2 tri­umph. The lo­cals who were sec­ond in Group O with eight points qual­i­fied for the knock­out stage, af­ter wins against Liberia by walkover 3-0, Kyr­gyzs­tan (3-1), Cu­ra­cao (3-0) and Faroe Is­lands (3-0) while it was beat­en by group win­ner Mon­go­lia (ten points), 1-3. Turk­menistan was third in Group Q with eight points from five match­es, af­ter wins against Namib­ia, Tan­za­nia and Zim­bab­we all by 3-0 mar­gins and loss­es ver­sus Sri Lan­ka and Guernsey, by sim­i­lar fash­ion. The oth­er Caribbean en­trant Ja­maica which topped its group with per­fect record of 5-0, will now face Mon­go­lia, 3-1 vic­tors over Ice­land in the oth­er semi­fi­nal. To­day, the women's team of Rheann Chung, nine-time na­tion­al cham­pi­on Aleena Ed­wards and 17-year-old Cather­ine Spicer will be back in ac­tion against Tajik­istan in the 73rd to 80th po­si­tion Fourth Di­vi­sion play­offs from 10 am (5 am TT time). Yes­ter­day, Tajik­istan, which was third in Group M in the roun-robin group se­ries up­staged Group N run­ner-up Pak­istan 3-2 in its round-of-16 match to set up the meet­ing with the T&T.

The 78th-ranked T&T women, the reign­ing Caribbean cham­pi­ons, won match­es over Ugan­da (3-0), Ja­maica (3-1), Koso­vo (3-1) and Guernsey CI (3-2), to end with the max­i­mum eight points ahead of Koso­vo (six points) and Guernsey. To­day in the oth­er quar­ter­fi­nal match­es, the three oth­er au­to­mat­ic quar­ter­fi­nal qual­i­fiers as group win­ners in Nor­way (Group M), Lebanon (Group N) and Syr­ia (Group P) face Scot­land, Koso­vo and Kyr­gyzs­tan re­spec­tive­ly for a place in the semi­fi­nal round which serves off at 2 pm. The win­ner of the T&T/Tajik­istan tie will meet the win­ner of the Scot­land/Nor­way clash in the semi­fi­nal round while the win­ners of the oth­er du­els be­tween Syr­ia/Kyr­gyzs­tan and Koso­vo/Lebanon meet in the oth­er. In the play­offs for po­si­tions 85th to 92nd, Bar­ba­dos whipped Ja­maica 3-1 in their quar­ter­fi­nal and will meet South Africa in the semis to­day. South Africa trounced Liberia 3-0 in its last-eight match. The oth­er semi­fi­nals fea­ture Ugan­da against Bahrain af­ter their wins over Isle of Man (3-0) and Tan­za­nia (3-0) re­spec­tive­ly.