Saipan to host goodwill ping-pong tourney anew

The Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association will be hosting the 17th Goodwill Table Tennis Tournament this coming Saturday, May 12, at Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

According to tournament coordinator Budhi Gurung, the biannual competition will kick off at 9am and will conclude at 8pm.

Like always, the Goodwill tourney starts with a team format with players from host Saipan, Tinian, and from the Korea Table Tennis Association taking on each other in round-robin play with the first team to win three games declared the winner of the series.

After team play, the doubles competition will be up next which will be a best-of-three affair. The players with most wins in the team and doubles format will be declared singles champion.

An awards ceremony at the Saipan World Resort will conclude the Goodwill tourney.

The Saipan team will be made up of Budhi Gurung, MATTA president Steve Lim, Jean Shi, and Shi’s son David.

Tinian, meanwhile, will be led by Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino vice president Liang Wei Bin, former Saipan player Su Yong Dong, Charlie Chen, and Robin Lu.

Liang and company are still smarting from the loss of one of their top players, Luke Lu, who left Tinian for good three months ago.

The team from Guam, meanwhile, will be spearheaded by old reliable Hisamitsu Hamamoto, while the KTTA will be represented by eight strong players.

The last time the Goodwill tourney was held, the Saipan team swept the team, doubles, and singles competitions following years of domination from Tinian.

But Lim said Saipan will have difficulty retaining the championship this weekend, especially with very skilled and seasoned players from South Korea joining the tourney.

“Saipan won the last installment of the goodwill tournament, but this time around Saipan will be very hard pressed to retain any of the awards it took the last time,” he said.

Lim added he has his money on the team from KTTA to ultimately bring home the bacon in this weekend’s Goodwill tourney.

“We are happy that guest teams from South Korea and Guam have accepted our invitation and will participate. There are returning players from the Korean teams that joined back in 2010, and knowing this, I would have to say that the Korean teams and players are the favorites to win the team and individual honors,” he added.

The longtime MATTA president, who is now based in Guam, however said more than competition, it’s the opportunity to play the sport all of them love that brings players from the region together.

“Every year we hold the tournament in the spirit of camaraderie that it was originally created for, so just as in every time we organize it, the primary objective of the Goodwill tournament is to allow the participants to have as much fun as they can in the sport of table tennis. This sentiment I believe is shared by all the participating teams, which allows the event to achieve its simple objective,” said Lim.