Tinian tops Marianas Friendship Cup

Tinian ruled the 10th Marianas Friendship Cup held over the weekend at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino.

Mark Ma anchored Tinian’s triumph in the annual tournament, which featured singles and doubles competitions.

Ma won the singles event beating fellow Tinian player Luke Lu in the tiebreak. Both Tinian players finished the round-robin singles with perfect 5-0 records.

Another Tinian player, Charlie Cheng, settled for third defeating Saipan’s Su Yong Dong and Jean Shi in the tiebreak. All three players recorded identical 3-2 records. Su Yong was relegated to fourth, while Shi placed fifth.

Making it to the Top 10 were Liang Wei Bin (2-3), Robin Lu (2-3), Budhi Gurung (1-4), Guam’s Hisamitsu Hamamoto (1-4), and Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association president Steven Lim (0-5).

Ma teamed up with Liang Wei in the doubles event and finished with a clean 4-0 record to beat four other pairs.

Robin and Luke Lu had a 3-1 slate to place second, while Gurung and Charlie Cheng ended in third placed with a 2-2 record.

Jean and Su Yong and the tandem of Lim and Xu Ming Tian were in fourth and fifth places, respectively, with their 1-3 and 0-4 records.

Exhibition singles matches were held after the regular tournament with Sumio Yamamoto thumping Luke Lu, 3-0. Yamamoto also played against Ma with the former winning anew, 3-2.

Prior to the Marianas Cup, MATTA through the help of Tinian hosted the Large Ball Ping-Pong Tournament Friday with Saipan and Tinian players challenging 12 Japanese visitors.

Japan had four squads for the team event with the Yamamoto-led Japan 2 winning the team competition with a 5-0 record. Other members of the winning team were Hisamitsu Hamamoto and Kimiko Koike.

Asian Games gold medalist Hiroyuki Abe led Japan 1 to a second-place finish with their 4-1 slate. Abe teamed up with Mitsuko Yamaguchi and Terumi Morino.

Saipan was represented by Gurung, Shi, and Su Yong and finished third, followed by Mixed, Japan 3, and Japan 4.

Japan 3 was composed of Masuyuki and Yasuk Murai and Kyoko Akita, while members of team Japan 4 were Takashi Sawada, Kimiko Konishi, and Junko Kanemura.

The Mixed squad had Charlie Cheng, Lim, and Xu Ming.

The pair of Koike and Sumio Yamamoto had a clean 9-0 record to finish on top of the field in the doubles event.

Abe and Akita finished second with an 8-1 record, followed by Gurung and Su Yong (7-2), Yamaguchi and Hisamitsu Hamamoto (6-3), Shi and Xu Ming (5-4), Kanemura and Ma (4-5), Morino and Cheng (36), the Murais (2-7), Liang Wei and Bright Fu Liang (2-7), and Sawada and Lim (0-9).

Medals were awarded to the top three placers only in the team division of the Large Ball. Marianas Cup Top 3 finishers in the singles and doubles divisions also received medals.