D'Abadie Youths added the T&T Ta­ble Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TT­TA) First Di­vi­sion League ti­tle to its tro­phy cup­board when it de­feat­ed ri­vals, Ari­ma Hawks 4-2 in their fi­nal league en­counter at the D'Abadie Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day.

For D'Abadie which be­gan the af­ter­noon lev­el on 17 points with the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T, but ahead of sets won to set lost, the win im­proved the team to 19 points from its ten match­es, the same as the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T's, sim­i­lar 4-2 vic­tors over So­lo Cru­saders at UTT's O'Meara Road Cam­pus, Ari­ma.

How­ev­er, D'Abadie which hand­ed UTT its on­ly loss of the com­pe­ti­tion end­ed at the top of the ta­ble with a bet­ter sets won to sets loss ra­tio.

The host got off to the start it want­ed when USA-based Yu­vraj Dookram stormed past An­son Welling­ton 11-4, 11-2, 11-5 to put his team ahead 1-0 in the best-of-sev­en match se­ries.

But Hawks were ea­ger to spoil D'Abadie's cel­e­bra­tions and drew lev­el when lo­cal fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent Reeza Burke scold­ed Ever­ton Sorzano 11-8, 11-6, 11-8.

For­mer na­tion­al sin­gles cham­pi­on, Michael Nan­ton re­gained the lead for D'Abadie beat­ing Dave Williams 11-9, 11-9, 11-9 be­fore he com­bined with Dookram to win the dou­bles 11-7, 8-11, 8-11, 11-5, 11-6 over Williams and Burke for a 3-1 ad­van­tage and one match away from the ti­tle.

That cel­e­bra­tion had to be put on hold at least for a match as Burke, a five-time na­tion­al cham­pi­on turned back Dookram 8-11, 11-4, 11-5, 11-9 to get his team back in the con­test at 3-2 and at the same time rat­tle the nerves of the host.

How­ev­er, the re­cent­ly crowned na­tion­al men's team cham­pi­ons were not to be de­nied as Sorzano stomped Williams 13-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-2 to seal a 4-2 tri­umph and spark off cel­e­bra­tions.

Need­ing a win to have any chance of sur­pass­ing D'Abadie on the points ta­ble, UTT start­ed well with top ranked lo­cal men's play­er Cur­tis Humphreys beat­ing An­tho­ny "Sand­fly" Brown 11-9, 11-9, 11-9.

But Ter­ry Corbin re­spond­ed for the vis­i­tors out­gun­ning Alar­ic Humphreys 4-11, 12-14, 12-10, 12-10, 11-6 to lev­el the best-of-sev­en tie at 1-1.

Kyle Bor­neo then ral­lied past An­drew Alexan­der 7-11, 11-6, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9 to re­store UTT's frag­ile lead at 2-1, on­ly for Cru­saders to draw lev­el again at 2-2 af­ter Brown and Corbin won the dou­bles clash with the Humphreys broth­ers, 14-16, 11-7, 11-6, 11-7.

That's was the last taste of suc­cess for Cru­saders on the night as Cur­tis Humphreys whipped Corbin 11-9, 11-4, 11-7 and Alar­ic spanked Alexan­der 11-2, 11-7, 11-6 to seal the win and sec­ond spot on the fi­nal stand­ings.

On Thurs­day night, D'Abadie had re­gained top spot on the ta­ble af­ter it de­feat­ed host Ox­ford 4-2 at the lat­ter's San Fer­nan­do-based Sports Club, led by Dookram and De­clan John who com­bined for three of the vic­to­ries.

Dookram breezed past An­tho­ny Laquis 11-3, 11-4, 11-4 and paired with John to beat Laquis and Kirk Mo­hammed 11-9, 11-9, 11-4 in the dou­bles while John came from be­hind to stop Singh 5-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-7 and Nan­ton bat­tled past Singh 15-13, 12-10, 11-3.

For Ox­ford, Mo­hammed had a shock 10-12, 11-9, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7 win over Dookram and al­so over­whelmed Nan­ton 11-9, 8-11, 12-10, 11-7.

Hawks al­so won, but need­ed Welling­ton's 12-10, 11-7, 11-8 tri­umph over Alexan­der to get past Cru­saders 4-3 at the Ari­ma West Gov­ern­ment School.

The oth­er wins for Hawks came via five-time na­tion­al sin­gles cham­pi­on and fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent, Burke, 11-6, 11-6, 11-3 against Alexan­der and 11-5, 11-2, 11-5 over Corbin; and in the dou­bles when he com­bined with two-time Caribbean sin­gles cham­pi­on Li­onel Draceuil for a 5-11, 11-7, 11-5, 11-5 win over Corbin and two-time for­mer na­tion­al cham­pi­on, An­tho­ny "Sand­fly" Brown.

Brown ear­li­er swept past Welling­ton 11-7, 11-7, 11-7 and Darceuil 11-4, 11-7, 11-7 while Corbin out­last­ed Darceuil 13-11, 11-9, 5-11, 11-8 for Cru­sad­er's to lev­el the best-of-sev­en tie at 3-3 be­fore Welling­ton's hero­ics for Hawks in the de­cider.

The UTT squad was al­so made to fight for its vic­to­ry, 4-3 over Glad­i­a­tors de­spite top ranked lo­cal, Cur­tis Humphreys' loss to Aaron Ed­wards.

For UTT, Humphreys swept past Aaron's old­er broth­er, An­drew 11-9, 11-6, 11-7 and paired with Kyle Bor­neo to get the bet­ter of Kyle Ben­nett and An­drew 11-8, 12-14, 14-12, 11-9 in the dou­bles while Ken­win Small out­last­ed An­drew 11-9, 2-11, 10-12, 11-5, 11-8 and Bor­neo ral­lied past Ben­nett 11-5, 12-10, 11-9.

On the oth­er­hand, Aaron de­feat­ed Bor­neo in the open­ing tie, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8, 11-8 and fol­lowed up with an im­pres­sive beat­ing of Humphreys 12-14, 11-9, 12-10, 12-10 while Ben­nett proved too much for Small, 11-6, 12-14, 6-11, 16-14, 11-8.

Stand­ings

Teams*P*W*L*S/Won*S/Loss*S/Diff*Pts

D'Abadie*10*9*1*36*13*23*19

UTT*10*9*1*38*21*17*19

Hawks*10*6*4*31*23*8*16

Cru­saders*10*8*4*6*29*24*5*14

Ox­ford*9*1*8*11*33*-22*9

Glad­i­a­tors*9*0*9*5*36*-31*9