Former national junior player Jonathan Sankar turned in a stellar performance to cart off the prestigious men’s singles title from a quality field Sunday evening as the National Sports Commission sponsored annual Mashramani tournament climaxed with a crescendo.
A fair-sized crowd which included Director of Sport Neil Kumar, current Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) president Henry Greene, former Caribbean men’s singles champion Sydney Christophe, former GTTA executive Johnette Gonsalves and Sankar’s father former GTTA president Beni Sankar, turned up to witness the final and were not disappointed as Commonwealth Games player Edinho Lewis and Sankar thrilled the crowd with their display. While Lewis was all attack, Sankar mixed aggression with his scintillating defence to triumph 4-1 in the best of seven games final.
After dropping the first game 9-11, Sankar took a 3-1 lead by winning the next three games 11-9, 11-9, 11-9.
The fourth game was easily the best game of the match and fittingly the game went to deuce. Sankar was at his retrieving best and one particular rally saw Sankar first defending some fierce forehand loops by Lewis before they two players traded counter loops with Sankar winning the point when Lewis smashed a high ball long.
Sankar eventually took the game 12-10.
In the semi-finals Sankar defeated veteran player Colin France 3-2 while Lewis got past Orin `Vege’ Hickerson by a similar score.
In the boys 18 years and under final Nigel Bryan who had been plagued with cramps and was forced to abandon his quarter final men’s singles encounter against Sankar defeated southpaw Denzil Hopkinson 4-0.
Bryan added the U-21 and `B’ Class Open titles with 4-0 wins against Warren Hackshaw and Hickerson respectively.
In the women’s final 13-year-old Caribbean Junior Champion Chelsea Edghill turned back the challenge of former seven times national women’s champion Desiree Lancaster.
Lancaster had upset top seed Natalie Cummings in their semi-final clash but found Edghill too hot to handle in the final.
