RECENTLY-crowned men’s senior champion Christopher Franklin says that a new motivation, coupled with wanting to give back to the sport, has guided his return to the sport of table tennis.Franklin last weekend returned to competitive action in the Guyana Table Tennis Association’s National Senior Championships held at the National Gymnasium where he picked up the top prize in the Open men’s division.
Speaking to the media after taking the title, Franklin, who returned after a five-year hiatus from the sport said, “I have a new motivation (for the sport)”, adding, “I just want to come out back this year and contribute to table tennis. It’s something I really love and to help the team build and try to win championships with the guys.”
“I played reasonably well tonight. I came today with a clear game plan, I know that I didn’t have fitness, I haven’t been training a lot; I only put in a week’s training for this tournament so I came and just stuck to keeping the game simple and to win as many points as possible, ”said the player,
He stated that his strategy moving through the rounds was just to play calm and try to reduce the amount of movement thereby reducing the amount of energy used.
“That’s one of the strategies because I know I don’t have the fitness to go all out with these guys; you know these guys are young and enthusiastic and they like the big games so I just changed it around. I worked on this tactic and it paid off,” said the men’s champion.
Franklin coasted to victory in the round-robin playoff, defeating defending champion Nigel Bryan and Edhino Lewis.

(Stephan Sookram)