Spearheaded by national women’s singles champion, Trenace Lowe, Guyana’s women’s team looped and smashed their way to a silver medal at the 54th annual Caribbean table tennis championships in Santo Domingo yesterday.
Competing in the six team round robin final, Guyana’s only defeat came at the hands of eventual winners Santo Domingo by a 0-3 margin.
In what was a virtual final Lowe lost 3-11, 11-8, 11-13, 13-15 to Johenny Valdez and Chelsea Edghill went under 2-11, 4-11, and 4-11 to Eva Brito. Needing a win to stay in contention Guyana’s Nathalie Cummings went under 7-11, 11-5, 8-11, 7-11 to Lineth Vila.
General Secretary of the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) Godfrey Munroe praised the females for their accomplishments.
“I think that it is a commendable and special performance especially since Trenace (Lowe) is the female with the most senior exposure, Chelsea (Edghill) is still a junior and Natalie (Cummings) is now coming back into zone.
“There were up against strong countries like Puerto Rico and Trinidad and as such their performances were special. We will now have to look at the gap between our players and the players from the Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo) to see what happened because they lost 3-0 to them… but this is what we have to do in getting these girls exposure so that their talent and potential would not be wasted,” Munroe told Stabroek Sport via telephone.
The Guyanese lasses set the tone early on when they defeated the highly favoured Trinidad and Tobago team 3-2 despite two wins from France-based semi-professional player Rheann Chung who was down two games to Lowe before roaring back to win in five games.
Against Trinidad, Lowe defeated Ashley Quashie 10-12, 11-7, 11-3, 11-3 while Edghill lost to Chung at eight, five and nine. Cummings then defeated Linda Partap Boodhan 12-10, 7-11, 8-11, 11-3 and 11-9 while Lowe lost to Chung 11-8, 11-8, 10-12, 10-12, 11-3. In the deciding match, Edghill defeated Quashie, 13-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-3.
Guyana also scored wins over Jamaica 3-0, Barbados 3-0 and Puerto Rico.
Against Puerto Rico Edghill defeated Nicole Diz Torres 7-11, 11-9, 11-8, 7-11, 11-6 while Lowe lost to Maria Maldonado 6, 11, 6-11, 9-11. However Cummings defeated Lizette Maldonado 11-7, 12-10 and 11-8 while Lowe closed out the tie by defeating Torres 11-8, 11-6, 6-11, 10-12, and 11-9.
Munroe in the telephone interview also commended Edghill who he says will be a candidate for the junior table tennis Olympics in 2014.
“She is a strong performer and she has the ability to do well so we will be looking at her for the 2014 Olympics,” Munroe mentioned.
The men’s team failed to make it out of the group stage that featured Dominican Republic and French Guiana ending on two points for the third spot in the group in the men’s section of the team competition.
They lost 0-3 to the Dominican Republic and 2-3 to French Guiana.
Meanwhile Munroe reported shortly before press time that Guyana’s David and Bryan had won a bronze medal in the men’s doubles.
