Guyana’s Shemar Britton had his fine run at this year’s Central American and Caribbean table tennis championships halted by Cuba’s Livan Martinez, a former Caribbean U12 champion at the quarterfinals yesterday in El Salvador.
Hunting a place in the semi-finals Britton, himself a former Caribbean U21 champion, lost 10-12, 5-11, 11-8, 8-11, 11-6 and 4-11.
A win would have seen him equal former Caribbean champion Sydney Christophe’s creditable bronze medal, semi-final performance. Earlier yesterday, Britton had defeated the Dominican Republic’s Abit Tejada 8-11, 11-2, 11-6, 11-8 and 11-5.
Britton was the only Guyanese in action yesterday after the doubles pairs were all eliminated Sunday.
On Sunday, Chelsea Edghill and Natalie Cummings dispatched Trinidad’s Rheann Chung and Imani Edwards-Taylor 3-0 before losing narrowly 2-3 to Venezuela’s Camila Obando and Roxi Gonzalez.
Similarly, Britton and Christopher Franklin defeated the Barbadian pair of Trevor Farley and Tyrese Knights 3-0 before going down to Costa Rica’s Daniel Araya and Alejandro Montoya.
Today, the curtain will come down on the table tennis aspect of the games with the men and women’s singles finals.
In the men’s final favourite Brian Afanador of Puerto Rico will take on Cuba’s Andy Perreira while Puerto Rico’s world ranked Adriana Diaz will play Mexico’s Yadira Silva in the women’s final.
The men’s doubles final was won by Cubans Perreira and Jorge Campos from Afanador and Daniel Gonzalez and the women’s doubles final by Lucia Cordero and Mabelyn Enriquez of the CCS from Venezuela’s Obando and Gonzalez.
The men’s team event was won by Puerto Rico over Cuba 3-1 with the Cubans turning the tables on Puerto Rico in the women’s team final by an indentical 3-1 margin.
