Der­ron Dou­glas, a bronze medal win­ner for T&T in the Un­der-19 Boys Sin­gles and Team events at the just con­clud­ed Caribbean Youth (U-15 and U-19) Ta­ble Ten­nis Cham­pi­onship at the Par­que del Este in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, says he is proud of his achieve­ment.

The 18-year-old To­ba­go-born Dou­glas had to set­tle for a bronze medal af­ter los­ing a tense semi­fi­nal in the Un­der-19 boys against Puer­to Ri­can Os­car Bir­riel, 9-11, 11-9, 5-11, 13-11, 6-11, 8-11, while in the oth­er semi­fi­nal, an all-Puer­to Ri­can af­fair, Jab­diel Tor­res de­feat­ed Derek Valentin, 11-9, 11-7, 11-9, 10-12, 11-8.

The bronze medal was the third such medal won by T&T at the tour­na­ment af­ter the U-19 boys’ team (Dou­glas, Ameer Mo­hammed and Samuel Humphreys), and the U-15 boys’ team of Sekel Mc In­tosh, Ma­lik Gopaul, Josi­ah Joseph and Ethan Ram­cha­ran both got bronze as well.

When the Sin­gles com­pe­ti­tion re­sumed on Tues­day, Dou­glas bat­tled past home­town play­er An­dres Lo­ra, 12-14, 11-7, 11-6, 11-3, 11-7, in their best-of-sev­en sets round-of-16 clash be­fore be­ing brushed aside by the Puer­to Ri­can Jose Nieves, 11-7, 11-6, 11-7, 11-7, in the quar­ter­fi­nals.

On Mon­day, com­pet­ing in Group Sev­en, Dou­glas ral­lied past St Lu­cian Nathan Alexan­der, 11-8, 9-11, 11-0, 11-3; Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Christo­pher Ro­driguez, 11-8, 11-4, 7-11, 12-10 and Ja­maican Justin Hal­stead, 11-5, 11-7, 11-6, for a per­fect 3-0 round-robin record.

Com­ment­ing on his per­for­mance, Dou­glas who had a train­ing stint in Por­tu­gal pri­or to com­pet­ing in San­to Domin­go said, “Over­all, I am proud of my per­for­mance in this tour­na­ment be­cause I went down to a guy from Puer­to Ri­co who is ranked in the top 30 in the world in my semi­fi­nal.

Dou­glas added, “He (Bir­riel) has a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence, but I think com­ing back from a one-month train­ing camp in Por­tu­gal re­al­ly worked for me, and it showed out in my per­for­mance.

“It was my best tour­na­ment so far in my ca­reer and I’m re­al­ly proud to get that op­por­tu­ni­ty and to rep­re­sent T&T and to al­so podi­um fin­ish again in the Sin­gles af­ter fin­ish­ing third in the Teams and I came back and medal again.

“I’m re­al­ly proud of my per­for­mance. I was so close to get­ting in­to the fi­nals is just that I was a lit­tle off in the semi­fi­nals in the fifth set where I made a lit­tle too many er­rors," stat­ed Dou­glas.

Ear­li­er this year, Dou­glas of Queen’s Park Ta­ble Ten­nis Club com­pet­ed at the Caribbean Ta­ble Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion Se­nior Cham­pi­onship in Ha­vana, Cu­ba, and fin­ished with­out a medal.

De­spite, T&T fail­ing to medal in Cu­ba, Dou­glas had cred­itable per­for­mances team­ing up with fel­low Youth play­er, 13-year-old Chloe Fras­er to con­test the Mixed Dou­bles where they were beat­en in the open­ing round-of-16.

The pair of Dou­glas and two-time na­tion­al cham­pi­on Aaron Wil­son al­so reached the quar­ter­fi­nals of the Men’s Dou­bles.