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Goodwill ping-pong set for July 16 and 17
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Posted on Jun 27 2005
The 2005 CNMI Friendship Cup Invitational Table Tennis Tournament would be held at the ballroom of the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino on July 16 and 17.
The table tennis club of the TDHC has invited ping-pong players from the Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association and the Guam Table Tennis Association to participate in the annual competition.
The goodwill tournament was originally scheduled this month but was pushed off at the request of the hosts.
Three MATTA players and their coach would be using the tournament to hone their skills for their participation in next month’s 2005 South Pacific Mini Games in Palau.
Named to the CNMI National Table Tennis team earlier this month were Sablan Topline’s Budhi Gurung, Millennium Restaurant’s Su Dong, and Fu Ye Construction’s Chen Lin Ying. TransAmerica’s Steve Lim would serve as their coach.
For over a month now, the four along with several other MATTA members, have been training two to three hours a day, four times a week at the top floor of the Millennium Restaurant in Garapan.
Lim and MATTA board member Mario Espeleta said their new “training facility” allows them to go full-blast on their preparations for the Mini Games in Palau.
MATTA players also vowed that unlike the past two years, they would truly be ready to play Tinian and possibly even Guam ping-pong players in the goodwill tournament.
In the two-year history of the goodwill table tennis tournaments between Saipan and Tinian, the southerners have completely dominated the northerners, winning all four head-to-head encounters so far.
In the two most recent goodwill events, Tinian won 18 out of the 25 games to win the 2004 CNMI Friendship Cup Invitational Table Tennis Tournament in May 2004.
Tinian then made it two for two for the year when it took home the overall championship of the 2004 Marianas Friendship Table Tennis Tournament, which was hosted by MATTA at the Northern Marianas College Gymnasium last November.
