-says Idi Lewis
Former Caribbean junior boys’ table tennis champion Idi Lewis feels that the Guyana men’s team to this year’s Caribbean championships could bring home the bacon.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sports, the talented southpaw said this year’s men’s team will probably be ranked among the strongest ever to leave these shores.
“Yeah we should! I think we have the best players in the Caribbean. We’ve never had the best players representing Guyana at the same time. I figure if we get all the players on board this time, we could win the men’s team title, a title we haven’t won for sometime,” he declared.
Lewis, who won the boys singles title at the 1995 Junior Caribbean Championships in Puerto Rico, has missed a couple of Caribbean championships but declared yesterday that he was eager to get back into the mix.
“I missed a couple of years because of various reasons. I’m actually looking forward to it as I haven’t played it in a couple of years,” he said.
Lewis, who recently returned from abroad where he participated in several tournaments with some measure of success, said that he had already commenced training.
“I have been doing a lot of roadwork to build up the condition and recently commenced doing table drills,” he revealed.
A member of the Guyana team which placed a creditable 13th out of 200-odd teams at the North American Teams tournament in Baltimore, Maryland, USA last year, Lewis also placed second to Tahl Leibovitz at this year’s Chinatown Open.
He was also a member of the Guyana team comprising Diane Chance and former Caribbean Men’s singles champion Bruce Edwards, which won a team tournament in Canada earlier this year.
“I think myself, Paul David, Sydney Christophe, Colin France, Matthew Khan, Chris Franklyn, and I’d like to see Godfrey Munroe there in some capacity….should make the Guyana men’s team this year very, very strong,” he declared.
David, who departed Guyana yesterday after a brief holiday, is the top ranked Guyanese player in the US while former Caribbean men’s singles champion Christophe’s prowess with a table tennis racquet is now legendary.
France, a former three-time national Men’s singles champ is as evergreen as ever.
Last month he won the men’s singles event at the Plateau des Guyanes tournament in French Guiana and late last year he toppled a star studded field which included two former Caribbean champions Lionel Darcuiel and Trevor Farley on the way to winning a Supersingles tourney in Trinidad and Tobago.
Khan and Franklyn are now firmly established as senior players with Khan holding a victory of professional player Dexter St Louis while Munroe is the current national men’s singles champion- although an inactive champion.
“I think those are the best available players we have presently but I also think that exposing Nigel Bryan at these championships could be a plus for Guyana’s tennis.
“Bryan is definitely one of the brightest young players around and exposure to these games would help to jumpstart his development as a senior player,” Lewis opined.
Lewis said he was hoping that the GTTA will soon commence training for the championships which is less than a month away.
Lewis said he would like to give special thanks to former national table tennis champions Andrew Gorsira and Mike Christophe for assisting with his training for the Caribbean championships and also to Althea Sam of Fuchsia Fashions on South Road and GTTA vice president Arron Fraser for their unwavering support.
