Tuesday 30 August marked day two of the table tennis events at the 2011 Pacific Games. The group phase of the Men’s Team event came to conclusion and the top four seeds, namely New Caledonia, Tahiti, Vanuatu, and Fiji have booked their places in the semi finals.
In group 1, Tahiti emerged as group winners after they crushed Fiji by seven matches to two. The backbone of the Tahitian victory was seventeen year old Ocean Belrose who won all three of his matches. First he defeated Wang Qi for the first time in his career in five games, and later he accounted for both Richel Sen and Sanesh Chand in straight games. The older of the Belrose brothers, Alize, also claimed victories as did Tinihua Klouman in a solid team performance for the Tahitians. For Fiji Wang Qi claimed a victory over Alize Belrose and Richel Sen overcame Tinihau Klouman.
The lower positions in group 1 were also decided with Papua New Guinea finishing in third place, ahead of the Solomon Islands and Guam.
Meanwhile, in group 2 the host nation New Caledonia took no prisoners on their way to topping the group ahead of Vanuatu. In their match against Vanuatu to decide top place in the group, the trio of youngster Stephane Gilabert, stalwart Laurent Sens, and the experienced Olivier Bilon came out all guns blazing to record a comprehensive eight matches to one victory. Both Stephane Gilabert and Laurent Sens came away with three victories each against the Vanuatu trio of Yoshua Shing, Ham Lulu, and Randy Benjamin. For Vanuatu their only success came when Yoshua Shing defeated Olivier Bilon.
Nauru finished in third place in the group to underline their progress at what is their first ever international competition, while Palau finished in fourth place and the team from Tonga forfeited all their matches due to missing their flight.
Tomorrow will see the semi finals take place between Tahiti and Vanuatu as well as New Caledonia and Fiji. The chance to secure a gold medal awaits for the winners, while for the losers they will be left to fight it out for the bronze med
Last Modified on 06/09/2011 12:51