St Andrew defend titles

Ryon Jones, Gleaner Writer

There were some keen battles between the seven parishes that participated in yesterday's opening day of the Jamaica Table Tennis Association 2010 National Table Tennis Championships, which is being staged over three days at the University of Technology.

The parish team matches, which were contested on the yesterday's opening day, saw five parishes represented in the men's parish championship - Manchester, Portland, Kingston, St Andrew and defending champions St Catherine. The women equivalent only had two parish entrants - defending champions St Andrew and Manchester. The teams played in a round-robin format.

women's team crown

St Andrew, boasting five-time national women's champion Yvonne Foster, made light work of Manchester to retain the women's team crown. St Andrew's Ashli Alexander got by Manchester's Chantalle McLennon 16-14, 11-3, 11-9 before Foster brushed aside Manchester's Nerole Larmond 11-3, 11-2, 11-3. Foster then teamed up with Janelle Morris to ease past the pairing of Tanielle Fellington and Larmond 11-3, 11-2, 11-2 in doubles action.

In the reverse singles between the women, Alexander (11-6, 11-9, 11-4) once again got the better of McLennon. St Andrew's Janelle Morris (11-3, 11-1, 5-11, 11-6) stepped up to beat Manchester's Natasha Wright by three sets to one. The pairing of Foster and Morris (11-3, 11-6, 11-2) got the job done against Trixie-Blair Chung and Wright.

keenly contested

The men's category was a much more keenly contested affair, as five parishes battled for the crown with St Catherine and St Andrew going down to the wire. They entered the final set of matches which, coincidentally, saw them playing each other, being the only two parishes with realistic hopes of winning the men's title.

In the first set of matches, Commonwealth Games teammates Simon Tomlinson of St Catherine and Kane Watson of St Andrew came up against each other. Watson (11-5, 11-6, 11-2) rolled over his opponent, who looked to have been suffering the effects of a tough match that he lost to Don-Walker Petinaud prior to his ultimate game. St Andrew's Emani McPherson followed up with an 11-8, 11-5, 12-10 win over St Catherine's Rudolph Sinclair. McPherson and Kareem Flowers teamed up to defeat Sinclair and Altiman Henry to seal the title for St Andrew.

Action on today's second day is slated to begin at 9 a.m., with three sets of finals. The under-10 boys' and girls' group finals are the first set of games slated to serve off. The under-13 boys' and girls' singles will take centre stage at 10:30 a.m. This will be followed at noon by the under-18 boys', girls' and mixed doubles finals.