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Japanese tourists scrimmage with MATTA mainstays
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Posted on May 29 2012
Marianas Amateur Table Tennis Association members Budhi Gurung and Jean Shi had a grand time playing ping-pong with Japanese tourists Tetsuya Ozaki and Fumio Nakamura during the latter’s recent vacation on Saipan.
Ozaki, 48, and Nakamura, 50, are members of the Kawaguchi Cosmos Table Tennis Club in Japan. Ozaki, for one, has participated in several tournaments in Japan, while Nakamura has been playing the sport only the past two years.
The two are part of the 28-person group from Naito Kankyo, which stayed for three nights at the Hyatt Regency Saipan. Gurung works for Sablan Topline, which does cleaning services for the Garapan hotel.
Gurung said Ozaki really enjoyed practicing ping-pong with him for two hours in the morning at the Hyatt poolside despite heavy rains.
Ozaki even told him that ping-pong is an indoor game so he really enjoyed running after the ball a lot all the time because there were no barricades for the ball to stop.
Since Naito Kankyo will have one more group of tourists coming next month and will stay at the Hyatt Regency Saipan, Ozaki is requesting Gurung to schedule ping-pong practices with then as well.
Aside from Gurung and Shi, who is the defending Micronesian Games table tennis women’s champion, Shi’s son David Yang, 16, also took part in the practice sessions with the two Japanese tourists.
Gurung said he also invited Ozaki to bring his ping-pong club to the 18th Goodwill Table Tennis Tournament set later this year. (Saipan Tribune)
