NIGEL SI­MON

Aaron Wil­son of Care­nage Blasters and Pow­er­gen’s Cather­ine Spicer were vot­ed as the T&T Ta­ble Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion se­nior men and women “Play­ers of the Year” at its end-of-sea­son awards func­tion held at the Na­tion­al Rack­et Cen­tre, Or­ange Grove Road, Tacarigua last Sat­ur­day.

The 21-year-old Wil­son, a for­mer two-time Caribbean Ju­nior cham­pi­on and se­nior bronze medal win­ner as well, had a very im­pres­sive 2018 cam­paign which was high­light­ed by reach­ing the round-of-32 in the men’s sin­gles draw at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Gold Coast, Aus­tralia as well as the last-16 of the men’s dou­bles com­pe­ti­tion with Yu­vraaj Dookram.

Top-ranked lo­cal­ly, Wil­son dom­i­nat­ed his ri­vals on home soil to cap­ture the Sil­ver Bowl, Clas­si­fied Cham­pi­onship and Trin­ba­go Open ti­tles and was beat­en in the quar­ter­fi­nals of the So­lo Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship quar­ter­fi­nals by vet­er­an, Cana­da-based David Ma­habir.

The 23-year-old Spicer al­so en­joyed a rel­a­tive­ly suc­cess­ful sea­son as well cap­tur­ing two of three ma­jor ti­tles at stake, the Na­tion­al women’s Open Sin­gles and the Trin­ba­go Open, while Brit­tany Joseph took home the oth­er three, the Sil­ver Bowl, Clas­si­fied and Su­per Sin­gles.

At the re­gion­al lev­el, Spicer reached the last-16 of the women’s Sin­gles at the Se­nior Caribbean Cham­pi­onship as well as the women’s dou­bles with Lin­da Par­tap-Bood­han.

She al­so qual­i­fied to the last-32 of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Colom­bia and the last-16 of the women’s dou­bles with Par­tap-Bood­han.

Among the Ju­niors, Priyan­ka Khellawan of Petrotrin and Der­ron Dou­glas of Queen’s Park Crick­et Club cap­tured the top awards af­ter out­stand­ing cam­paigns.

Khellawan was a dom­i­nant force at the lo­cal and re­gion­al lev­el cap­tur­ing the Un­der-13 Caribbean crown while she is al­so ranked as the top play­er in her age group, and sec­ond.

Dou­glas, on the oth­er hand, topped the rank­ings in both the U-15 and U-18 age-groups at the end of the year. This af­ter a third-place fin­ish in the U-21 Caribbean Sin­gles com­pe­ti­tion and reached the last eight of the U-18 cat­e­go­ry.

At the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship, he reached the last-32 of the sin­gles as well as the dou­bles with Luc O’Young. In Latin Amer­i­ca, Dou­glas al­so qual­i­fied to the round-of-16 in the El Sal­vador-held, Ju­nior and Cadet Cham­pi­onship.

Ho­n­our roll

Ju­nior Women’s Play­er of the Year: Priyan­ka Khellawan

Se­nior Women’s Play­er of the Year: Cather­ine Spicer

Ju­nior Men’s Play­er of the Year: Der­ron Dou­glas

Se­nior Men’s Play­er of the year: Aaron Wil­son

Women’s Open:

1 Brit­tany Joseph

2 Cather­ine Spicer

3 Lin­da Par­tap-Bood­han

Men’s Open:

1 Aaron Wil­son

2 Cur­tis Humphreys

3 Arun Roop­nar­ine

Top ranked Age-Group Play­ers:

Girls:

U-11:

1 Chloe Fras­er

2 Ash­lea Mo­hammed

3 Lyl­lana Bood­han & Shreya Maraj

U-13:

1 Priyan­ka Khellawan

2 Imani Ed­wards-Tay­lor

3 Chloe Fras­er

U-15:

1 Shreya Ma­haraj

2 Priyan­ka Khellawan

3 Imani Ed­wards-Tay­lor

U-18:

1 Chelsea Fong

2 Shreya Ma­haraj

3 Rayan­na Bood­han

U-21:

1 Chelsea Fong

2 Brit­tany Joseph

3 De­r­ah Ra­moutar

Boys:

U-11:

1 Gabriel John

2 Dil­lon Bruce

3 Sekel Mc In­tosh

U-13:

1 Nicholas O’Young

2 Jalen Kerr

3 Ja­mali Mauge

U-15:

1. Der­ron Dou­glas

2. Nicholas O’Young

3. Ja­mali Mauge

U-18:

1 Jesse Dook­ie

2 Der­ron Dou­glas

3 Luc O’Young

U-21:

1 Aaron Wil­son

2 Luc O’Young

3 Jessie Dook­ie