World Team Table Tennis Championships: Seychelles scores

(Seychelles News Agency) - The World Team Table Tennis Championships saw the participation of Seychellois teams in the matches which took place in Tokyo, Japan from 28 April to 5 May.

According to to an article in Today in Seychelles newspaper, the Seychelles’ women’s team played in group 4: Aniessa Benstrong, Laura Sinon and Christy Bristol, faced Botswana who they defeated 3-0 in their first match.

The team lost 3-0 to Laos and also to Syria in a score of 3-2 before recovering to beat Costa Rica and Bangladesh 3-0 respectively.

The Seychelles trio was ranked 3rd position, with first place won by Syria followed by Laos.

The Seychelles men's team: Nicholas Esther, Bjorn Mousbe and Mick Créa were placed in group 5. They lost 3-0 to Nepal in their their first match, and won against Zambia and Gambia by the same score.

They lost 3-0 to South Africa and Jersey to finish 4th out of six teams.

The World Table Tennis Championships men's cup was won by China, when the team defeated Germany 3-1, and the ladies cup was also won by China, who won against Japan.

The chairman of the Seychelles Table Tennis Association, Francis Remie led the Indian Ocean island nation’s delegation to the Tokyo Championship.

“The players have produced satisfactory results,” Remie has told SNA.

He noted that it’s the first time a Seychelles women’s team has taken part in the World Team Table Tennis Championships that takes place every two years, while a men’s team had taken part back in the late 1980s.

For one member of the women’s team, Aniessa Benstrong, the championship served as preparation for her participation in the upcoming Commonwealth Games to be held in Glasgow, Scotland in July this year.

Benstrong is currently studying the sport in China.

Table Tennis has evolved in Seychelles over the last couple of years.

"When the sport started we had three balls for 12 players," Remie told the press when being interviewed at the World Team Table Tennis Championship in Tokyo.

Today more and more is being done to ensure the development of Seychellois Table Tennis players.

Evidence of such efforts is the arrival in Seychelles this evening of a group of Table Tennis players in the Under 14 category from the neighbouring Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius.

“They are here for a training camp as well as a tournament,” Remie has told SNA.

This he says is part of efforts to help ‘the Seychelles Hope Team’ that is being trained to be able to represent the country at future international competitions.