Tinian clobbers hosts as goodwill ping-pong ends

For now, the Commonwealth’s best brand of table tennis is played across the Saipan Channel after a crack team from Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino won the two-day 2004 Marianas Friendship Table Tennis Tournament at the Northern Marianas College Gymnasium.

After winning 17 of 25 matches Saturday, Tinian ping-pong players continued their success against their Saipan counterparts and won 16 of the last 24 matches Sunday to annex the championship of the goodwill tournament, 33-16.

Three players from Tinian went undefeated in the round-robin competition, as Luke Lu and Charlie Cheng joined No. 1 player and two-hold specialist Chang Zhan Xue with 7-0 marks.

Amazingly, Lu, Cheng, and Chang dropped only a grand total of three sets among themselves through the course of the tournament.

Chang was extended to four sets by Saipan’s own No. 1 Budhi Gurung, 11-5, 11-5, 3-11, 11-7. Cheng, meanwhile, was challenged by Liu Wei in a score of 11-8, 12-10, 9-11, 11-9. Lu, for his part, lost the opening set before rallying to beat Chen Lin Ying, 10-12, 11-6, 11-2, 11-7.

Next in the win-loss column for Team Tinian was Liang Wei Bin, who compiled a 5-2 mark after wins over Liu, Chen, Mario Espeleta, Peter De Leon, and Steven Lim. The two losses of Bin came courtesy of Gurung and Saipan’s No. 2 Su Yong Dong.

Robin Lu (4-3), Liu Fu Liang (2-5), and Alfred Yue (1-6) make up the rest of the seven-man contingent from Tinian Dynasty. Lu won against Liu, Lim, De Leon, and Espeleta. Liu Fu beat Lim and De Leon, while Yue’s lone win came against De Leon.

Gurung and Su were the only players from Saipan to finish above .500 in the tournament. Both players compiled identical 4-3 marks with all those setbacks courtesy of Tinian’s Top 3.

Gurung swept Liang in three easy sets and then got tested by Liu Fu in the first two before eking out an 11-9, 12-10, 11-1 triumph. The Topline employee then had to survive a grind-out 9-11, 11-1, 9-11, 11-5, 11-3 win over Lu.

Su topped Lu in four hard-fought sets, 11-3, 11-8, 8-11, 11-6, then downed Liang in another four-set thriller, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8, 11-9. He also upended Liu Fu in four. The Iron Chef Restaurant cook then dominated Yue in three straight sets.

Chen had a lot of close calls go against him and finished with a 3-4 mark. He defeated Lu, Liu, and Yue, but surrendered losses to the Top 3 plus Liang.

Liu and Espeleta posted similar 2-5 records. Liu downed Liu Fu in four sets and then swept Yu. Espeleta, for his part, topped Yue in four and then had to outlasted Liu Fu 12-10, 9-11, 6-11, 11-8, 12-10.

Lim’s only victory came at the expense of Yue and it was in five sets 11-8, 11-9, 9-11, 9-11, 12-10. De Leon, meanwhile, had heartbreak written all over his seven defeats. The closest the Filipino table tennis player came to recording a win was against Liu Fu, when he led 6-11, 11-8, 11-5 before losing the next two sets 11-5, 11-5.

Organizer Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association handed each of the seven members of the Tinian team individual trophies and one handsome three-foot tall championship trophy during an awards banquet held Sunday evening at the Iron Chef Restaurant in Garapan.