France-based duo Dexter St Louis and his stepdaughter Rheann Chung played instrumental roles as T&T men’s and women’s table tennis teams created history at the 51st Senior Caribbean Table Tennis Championship, in Cayenne, French Guiana. Both teams swept the team competitions making it the first time that T&T had won the men’s and women’s teams competition in the same year. In the six-team men’s round-robin tournament, the local quartet of St Louis, Michael Nanton, Curtis Humphreys and Anson Wellington ended with a 4-1 record, the same as Guyana and Aruba.
T&T who lost their final match to Guyana 3-2, won the title due to a better win ratio, while Aruba was third. The Guyanese went into their match with T&T needing to win by a 3-0 or 3-1 margin to capture the crown. T&T also defeated Barbados 3-2; St Lucia 3-0; Aruba 3-1; and host French Guyana, 3-2 to capture its first men’s team title in over 30 years. The women’s quartet of Chung, Aleena Edwards, her sister, Astra Edwards-Burnett and 14-year-old Catherine Spicer won the team title for the third time in six years.
The local quartet also completed its four-team series with a perfect record of three wins from as many matches following wins over Barbados, Guyana and hosts, French Guyana. T&T previously won the women’s team title on home soil in 2004 and also captured the crown when the tournament was played in Jamaica last year. Yesterday, three-time men’s singles champ St Louis and two-time women’s winner Chung, were involved in singles competition along with the rest of their teammates. Today, the mixed doubles, men’s doubles and women’s doubles competition will serve off.
