Guyanese table tennis players put in sterling performances
-- at season-ending North American tourney
Guyana Chronicle
January 5, 2004
GUYANESE table tennis players once again put in a sterling performance at the recently held North American Table Tennis Championships in Baltimore, USA.
The Thanksgiving weekend tournament, which had over two hundred teams from around the world competing in twelve divisions, saw G.T. Top Shattaz, a team made up of mainly Guyanese players such as Usama Nasrudeen, Shaun Abrams, Jamael Abrams, Colin ‘Shaka’ Ford and Jamaican Odinga Mitchell, winning Division 5.
In Division 8, The Ruffians, a team led by Guyanese players Kelvin Duesbury, Linden Thomas and Carlton Sutton won in the finals while in Division 11, NP Electronics Veterans Team, led by former national player Donald Duff, Michael Vieira, Paul Boodhoo and Akbar Ali, topped the entire field.
Another team calling themselves Guyana North, made up of former Caribbean champion Sydney Christophe, Lester Cummings, Mosi Killikelly, Shawn Embleton and Alex Mingo, played well to reach the premier Division 1, but could not handle the opposition.
Rondell Jordan, another Guyanese player and son of former veteran player Patrick Jordan (P.J) featured in a team which won Division 9.
The championships Division I was won by Wartski's Manhattan Table Tennis Club, a team made up Germany's World #77 Thomas Keinath; Hong Kong's World #50 Leung Chu Yan; China's World #48, Chen Zhibin; and the U.S.'s World Women's #30, Wang Chen who defeated New York Athletic Club's four-time U.S. singles champion David Zhuang, U.S. team member Barney Reed and Lin Zhigang of the prestigious Elan Nevers Club in France .
Former national player Paul David, a semi-professional coach who runs a Tuesday-night league at his N.Y. club, playing with a team named New York Best, lost in the quarter-finals to New York Athletic Club.
Meanwhile, President of the GTTA, Sydney Christophe, and several members of the team are expressing thanks to all the persons who assisted them in making the trip to the North American Teams Championships possible and for the enjoyable stay while in the U.S. These include Junior Horatio of North American Airlines, Nigel's Supermarket, Goodwood Racing Service, Lester Cummings, Mike Christophe, Leslie Gill, Alex Mingo, Andrew Gorsira and others.