-Van Lange and Wong victorious in boys singles

ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD Jasmine Billingy stormed to back-to-back titles, while Jonathan Van Lange and Colin Wong won the U-19 and U-15 boys titles respectively on the final day of the National Junior and Cadet Table Tennis Championships at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

The Winfer Gardens Primary School student, Billingy, proved her might by playing flawlessly in the Cadet (U-15) round-robin division before she defeated Thuraia Thomas 3-0 in the final of the Junior (U-19) battle.

Samara Sukhai, whose only loss was to Billingy, finished second in the U-15 while Akira Watson finished third.

Sukhai almost gained revenge when she battled Billingy in the Girls U-19 semi-final. In that match, she went ahead 11-7, before losing the second game 3-11. She however showed fight to win the third, but then Billingy took control, first with a tense 11-8 win to tie things up at 2-2 before holding her opponent to zero in the last game.

In the other semi-final, Thomas also fought back a game down against 2020 champion Crystal Melville, but she surged ahead with three straight wins to triumph 3-1 (6-11, 11-9, 11-6 and 11-5). In the championship clash however, she could not defeat the younger Billingy who won 11-8, 11-8 and 11-9.

WONG RECOVERED
Colin Wong, who was the initial favourite for the Boys U-15 title, suffered an injury on Saturday and looked almost out of it. He struggled in his preliminary rounds after and could not even pick the ball up from the ground, but a good night’s rest did him well since he stormed to championship honours yesterday.

First, he got the better of 12-year-old Malachi Moore in the semi-final with a 3-0 win (11-5, 11-6 and 11-6), before he defeated another up-and-coming youngster Ebo McNeil 11-7, 11-4 and 11-8 in the final.

McNeil had gotten the better of D. Daniels (11-1, 11-3 and 11-2) in the other semi-final. In all the events, the losing semi-finalists finished in joint third place.

THIRD TITLE
The dominant Van Lange was almost flawless to his third consecutive junior title.

He defeated Wong 4-0 (11-2, 11-5, 11-7 and 11-7) in the quarter-final, before beating Isaiah Layne 4-0 (11-6, 11-9, 11-2 and 11-5) in the semi-final.

In the final of the event, the 2022 Boys Doubles champions Van Lange and Niran Bissu battled against each other.

Bissu, 18, was able to hold his own against the 15-year-old Van Lange, and employed solid tactics in defence and attack, but Van Lange with his superior reach and skillset was always in control.

There were a few close games and a few went down to the wire, but in the end, Van Lange emerged with a 4-1 win (11-5, 11-13, 11-7, 12-10 and 11-9).

The championships started on Saturday with the Novice Boys and Girls battle and the U-19 Doubles.

Overall, both Van Lange and Billingy finished with three wins over the weekend. The champions had teamed up to win the Mixed Doubles title.