MATTA, TDHC name players for goodwill tourney

The Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association and the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino Table Tennis Club have submitted the names of players that will participate in their biannual goodwill tournament set for April 1 and 2 on Tinian.

According to MATTA official Budhi Gurung the six-man MATTA team for the 4th Tinian Saipan Goodwill Tournament would be made up of himself, Micronesian Games Saipan qualifier topnotcher Su Yong Dong, his runner-up Chen Lin Ying, Mario Espeleta, Con Pobre, and MATTA president and interim national coach Steve Lim.

Espeleta and Pobre finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Saipan leg of the qualifier held last week at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium multi-purpose room.

Leading the TDHC cast are the top two players during last December’s goodwill tournament between the two clubs— Luke Lu and Charlie Cheng.

Lu was the singles champion of the 3rd Saipan-Tinian Goodwill Table Tennis Tournament held at the Northern Marianas College Gymnasium with Cheng coming a close second.

Other players making up the Tinian delegation are Lu’s brother Robin, Liang Wei Bin, Bright Liu, and Alfred Yue.

The goodwill tournament would consist of both singles and doubles matches and two round-robin rounds. The first round will be best-of-five affairs, while the second round would use a best-of-seven format. Tinian has won the past three goodwill tournaments against its northern neighbor.

Coinciding with the staging of the Tinian-Saipan goodwill competition is the Tinian leg of the qualifying round for the Micronesian Games, set here on Saipan from June 23 to July 3.

Earlier, MATTA said Luke Lu and Chen have been invited to be part of the national team, citing both players’ success in recent tournaments involving both islands.

Like swimming, triathlon, baseball, and softball, table tennis is one of the sports the CNMI is expected to do well and medal in the Games.

In the 2005 South Pacific Mini Games in Palau, the team of Su, Chen, and Gurung—under the guidance of Lim—won a bronze medal in the team competition for table tennis.

The CNMI actually finished fourth behind powerhouses New Caledonia (Gold), Guam (Silver), Fiji (Bronze), but since the South Pacific Games Council awards two bronze medals—one for the third place team and a second to the fourth place teams—the CNMI was able to salvage bronze.