NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

The trio of An­tho­ny Laquis, of Ox­ford, Faiz Mo­hammed, of Pow­er­Gen Pe­nal, and David Ramdin, of Ox­ford, were all in win­ners row when the South Zone of the T&T Ta­ble Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TT­TA) held a Mas­ters & Vet­er­ans Tour­na­ment fea­tur­ing 33 play­ers from nine clubs at the Preysal Sec­ondary School, Preysal, on Sun­day last.

In the 50 59 di­vi­sion, Laquis out­played club­mate Ish­war Sookoon­s­ingh in the fi­nal 11-5, 11-8, 11-6.

When the knock­out phase served off, Laquis swept past Adesh Ram­phal­lie 11-4, 11-7, 11-7 in the round-of-16 fol­lowed by wins over Dave Ra­moutar (11-4, 10-12, 11-9, 11-4) in the last-eight, and Frankly Seechan in the fi­nal-four 3-11, 11-6, 11-13, 11-9, 11-5 while Sookoon­s­ingh had a round-of-16 bye be­fore he beat Rasheed Mo­hammed 11-9, 11-5, 11-4 in the quar­ter­fi­nals, and Rafael Mo­hammed in his semi­fi­nal, 11-8, 11-7, 5-11, 11-7.

Laquis had qual­i­fied out of his three-play­er round-robin Group One in the sec­ond spot af­ter beat­ing Bri­an McEachrane 11-4, 11-6, 11-6 and los­ing to group win­ner Dex­ter Archie 11-3, 11-4, 8-11, 8-11, 7-11 while Sookoon­s­ingh topped Group Four with wins against Ram­phal­lie 11-4, 2-11, 8-11, 11-7, and Ar­lene Joseph 11-3, 11-5, 11-8.

Mo­hammed played un­beat­en in win­ning the 60-69 cat­e­gories, de­feat­ing Bob­by Gopaul of Ox­ford Club in the de­cider 11-4, 11-9, 11-9.

This af­ter Mo­hammed re­ceived a quar­ter­fi­nal round bye be­fore beat­ing Harnar­ine Moonasar 11-9, 11-7, 11-6 in their fi­nal-four en­counter while Gopaul bat­tled past Satesh Jod­han 12-10, 11-6, 13-11 in his semi­fi­nal.

In the round-robin stage, Mo­hamed won both his Group One match­es ver­sus Ed­win Caines 12-10, 11-6, 11-6 and Bachan Singh 11-6, 11-5, 11-7 while Gopaul out­played Moonasar 11-8, 11-8, 4-11, 11-5, Bri­an Dem­ming 9-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-3, and Jef­fery Mor­ris 11-7, 11-6, 11-4 in Group Two.

Faiz Mohammed, of PowerGen Penal, collects his 60-69 age-group winner’s trophy and hamper from Elton Beckles in the South Zone of the T&T Table Tennis Association (T&TTTA) Masters & Veterans Tournament at the Preysal Secondary School, Preysal last Sunday.

And in the 70 and Over vet­er­ans com­pe­ti­tion, Ramdin, of Ox­ford Club, end­ed with a per­fect 3-0 record for first place ahead of Cou­va Ta­ble Ten­nis Club’s Ken Ali (2-1), while Guaracara Ta­ble Ten­nis Club Al­lan Dook­ie was third.

Ramdin de­feat­ed Dook­ie 11-8, 11-7, 12-10; Ali 11-8, 11-5, 11-3, and Samuel San­dassie al­so of Guaracara, 10-12, 11-5, 11-6, 11-6 while Ali beat Dook­ie 11-5, 11-2, 11-5 and San­dassie 11-7, 13-15, 11-8, 11-8. Dook­ie got his lone win against San­dassie 6-11, 11-7, 11-5, 11-9.

At this tour­na­ment which al­so fea­tured in­vit­ed play­ers from the Cen­tral Zone, many of the for­mer play­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors from South and Cen­tral Trinidad were ho­n­oured.

In ad­di­tion, trib­ute was al­so paid to Mans­ingh Amars­ingh, Leela Calpu, Ed­win Nif­fi­keer, El­ton Beck­les, Vish­nu Gokool, Michael Bris­bane and Frankie Wor­rell.

Ham­pers were spon­sored by Karibbean Flavours and wa­ter was do­nat­ed by S.M Jaleel and Com­pa­ny while two fe­male par­tic­i­pants Ar­lene Joseph of En­ter­prise, and her club­mate Jacquilline Coutain were giv­en a spe­cial match in ad­di­tion to their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 50 - 59 cat­e­go­ry.

Mov­ing for­ward, the South Zone of the T&TT­TA plans to host at least two more tour­na­ments in 2022 as ta­ble ten­nis re­sumes af­ter the pan­dem­ic lock­down.