Guyanese women open on winning note, men suffer mixed fortunes

GUYANA’S campaign at the 61st Senior Caribbean Table Tennis Championships, here on home soil at Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH), served off to different starts yesterday for the Women and Men’s teams respectively.

Playing in two matches, the Guyanese women took away maximum points and sit top of the table with four points heading into today’s action.

In the first session of play during the morning, the Guyanese women faced Martinique and steamrolled them, winning 3-0. First Natalie ‘Speedy’ Cummings teamed up with Chelsea Edghill against Oceane Meredin and Mevena Avril and the Guyanese duo dispatched their opponents in straight sets of 11-7, 11-6, 11-5 before Trenace Lowe made it 2-0, Team Guyana defeating Armelle Pruvost 11-3, 8-11, 11-5, 11-3.

Edghill then handed Guyana maximum points from the fixture by beating Mevena Avril in straight sets of 11-4, 11-5, 11-6.
Guyana’s next victims were Barbados, who suffered a 0-3 loss. In the doubles match-up, Cummings and Edghill once again teamed up to devastating effect, condemning Anthonette Riley and Krystle Harvey to sets of 5-11, 11-3, 11-3, 7-11, 11-8 while Lowe chipped in with an 11-6, 18-20, 13-11 and 13-11 win over Janae Lewis.

Once again Edghill put the icing on the cake, defeating Harvey in three identical sets of 11-3 to leave the Guyanese girls sitting pretty in pole position with four points. They will face possibly their toughest opponents, the Dominican Republic, today along with Jamaica.
However, the Guyanese men did not have the same dream start, facing powerhouse Dominican Republic as they went down 3-0. First Joel Alleyne and Christopher Franklin surrendered in the doubles match by sets of 8-11, 8-11, 6-11 to the Dominican duo of Emil Santos and Isaac Vila.

Meanwhile, Shemar Britton showed a bit of a fight against Mariano Lockward but also went down in three straight sets of 8-11, 8-11, 4-11, Franklin was the last casualty of the Dominican encounter conceding defeat to Vila in sets of 6-11, 11-8, 9-11, 3-11.

In their second game of the day, the Guyanese men rebounded with a 3-0 win over St Lucia. Up to press time the detailed scores of that game were yet to be made available to the media. They will advance to the main draw today with that win as St Lucia finished third in that group.

Action begins at 10:00hrs today at Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH), Homestretch Avenue, and is open to the public.