Aaron Wilson, showed off his wide range of skills developed from his three-month stint in Sweden at clubs Koping and Angby, by capturing the Men's Open title in the North Zone of the T&T Table Tennis Association Fifth Rating Tournament held at T&TEC Sports, Filament Street on Sunday.
The teenaged Wilson of Carenage Blasters won his second title using his tricky serves and exquisite back hand to prevail against the talented and spirited University of T&T's Alaric Humphreys 11-7, 9-11, 11-4, 6-11, 11-7.
Earlier on his three-player second round group, Wilson, the reigning Caribbean Junior champion and men's bronze medal winner, defeated PowerGen's Faiz Mohammed and Tough Guys' Vinoo Maraj, both by 3-0 margins followed by a 13-11, 11-7, 11-6 win over previous winner Everton Sorzano in their semifinal.
On the other hand, Humphreys, the second ranked player in the tournament was just as efficient. Having played unbeaten in the recently concluded WASA League where he was named tournament "Most Valuable Player" after leading UTT to the title, Humphreys beat Blasters' Luc O'Young 3-0 and PowerGen's Anthony Laquis 3-1, followed by an impressive, 11-7, 11-4, 11-4 win over D'Abadie Youths' Haadiy Brooker.
In the Over-40 Division, Riad Abasali swept past Ferdinand Castillo 11-5, 11-4, 11-8.This after Abasali of Tough Guys humbled Miguel Nixon 11-4, 11-4, 11-6 in the quarterfinals followed by a 10-12, 11-4, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9 win over Anthony Laquis in the semifinals.
Castillo, like Laquis got a quarterfinal bye and then beat Rasheed Mohammed in the last-eight, 11-8, 11-1, 11-4.Mohammed of Petrotrin had earlier beaten Learie Bernard 11-9, 11-9, 5-11, 7-11, 12-10 in his quarterfinal.
And in the Over-60 category, Petrotrin's Hoazare Gopaul emerged as the champion over PowerGen's Faiz Mohammed and D'Abadie's Carlisle Cleveland based on games won to games loss ratio after all three players ended with 1-1 records in their three-player round-robin final.
Gopaul beat Cleveland 11-4, 11-6, 12-10; Cleveland overcame Mohammed 11-9, 6-11, 11-7, 11-6 and then Mohammed rallied past Gopaul, 10-12, 11-9, 11-8, 11-8.
At the end of the tournament hampers were distributed to the winners and runner-up of Over-40 and Over-60 categories with 76-year-old Joe Mansano (Patna River Estate) receiving a hamper as the highest placed B class player in Over-60 and Mohammed who reached the semifinals of the Over-40 getting a hamper as the highest place B class player in Over-40 category.
Other hampers were won by the top two placings of both divisions whilst the first four players of the Open won cash vouchers.